Regulatory Chill and the TTIP: An Intellectual Property Perspective

Explores the theory of regulatory chill from an intellectual property perspective. Assesses the implications of some of the most controversial investor-state dispute settlement disputes involving intellectual property rights. Argues that the threat to regulatory freedom posed by the inclusion of an investor-state dispute settlement mechanism in the TTIP should not be underestimated

The Centrality of Awareness in the Formation of User Behavioral Intention toward Protective Information Technologies

While there is a rich body of literature on user acceptance of technologies with positive outcomes, little is known about user behavior toward what we call protective technologies: information technologies that protect data and systems from disturbances such as viruses, unauthorized access, disruptions, spyware, and others. In this paper, we present the results of a study of user behavioral intention toward protective technologies based on the framework of the theory of planned behavior. We find that awareness of the threats posed by negative technologies is a strong predictor of user behavioral intention toward the use of protective technologies. More interestingly, in the presence of awareness, the influence of subjective norm on individual behavioral intention is weaker among basic technology users but stronger among advanced technology users. Furthermore, while our results are consistent with many of the previously established relationships in the context of positive technologies, we find that the determinants ¡°perceived ease of use¡± and ¡°computer self-efficacy¡± are no longer significant in the context of protective technologies. We believe that this result highlights the most significant difference between positive technologies and protective technologies: while the former are used for their designed utilities, for which usefulness and ease of use have a significant impact, the latter are used out of fear of negative consequences, for which awareness becomes a key determinant. We discussed the theoretical and practical implications of these findings. The findings of this study extend the theory of planned behavior to the context of protective technologies and shed insights on designing effective information security policies, practices, and protective technologies for organizations and society

Low Effort and Privacy – How Textual Priming Affects Privacy Concerns of Email Service Users

The integration of digital applications and systems into the everyday routines of users is inevitably progressing. Ubiquitous and invisible computing requires the perspective of a new user and the inclusion of insights from related disciplines such as behavioral economics or social psychology. This paper takes up the call for research by Dinev et al. (2015) and examines the influence of textual priming elements on the privacy concerns of users of email accounts. The paper provides an operationalization of a privacy concern as a dependent variable, incorporated in an online experiment with 276 participants. The results show highly significant differences between the groups investigated by the experiment. Specifically, the users of different email providers show interesting results. While users of Gmail show no significant reaction in the experiment, users of other email providers show significant differences in the experimental setting

Who will lead Bulgaria’s next government?

The 2021 Bulgarian election produced a fragmented result, with six different parties entering parliament. The country’s incumbent Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, has already indicated that he will not put himself forward as a candidate to lead the next government. Ivaylo Dinev and Petar Bankov assess the options for a new coalition and what failure to ... Continue

The Centrality of Awareness in the Formation of User Behavioral Intention Toward Preventive Technologies in the Context of Voluntary Use

Little is known about user behavior toward what we call preventive computer technologies that have become increasingly important in the networked economy and society to secure data and systems from viruses, unauthorized access, disruptions, spyware, and similar harmful technologies. We present the results of a study of user behavior toward preventive technologies based on the frameworks of theory of planned behavior in the context of anti-spyware technologies. We find that the user awareness of the issues and threats from harmful technologies is a strong predictor of user behavioral intention toward the use of preventive technologies. In the presence of awareness, the influence of subjective norm on individual behavioral intention is significantly weakened among less technology savvy users but strengthened among more technology savvy users. Also, commonly strong determinants “perceived ease of use” and “computer self-efficacy” in utilitarian technologies are no longer as significant in preventive technologies. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed

Simple and Optimal Online Contention Resolution Schemes for kk-Uniform Matroids

We provide a simple $(1-O(\frac{1}{\sqrt{k}}))$-selectable Online Contention Resolution Scheme for $k$-uniform matroids against a fixed-order adversary. If $A_i$ and $G_i$ denote the set of selected elements and the set of realized active elements among the first $i$ (respectively), our algorithm selects with probability $1-\frac{1}{\sqrt{k}}$ any active element $i$ such that $|A_{i-1}| + 1 \leq (1-\frac{1}{\sqrt{k}})\cdot \mathbb{E}[|G_i|]+\sqrt{k}$. This implies a $(1-O(\frac{1}{\sqrt{k}}))$ prophet inequality against fixed-order adversaries for $k$-uniform matroids that is considerably simpler than previous algorithms [Ala14, AKW14, JMZ22]. We also prove that no OCRS can be $(1-\Omega(\sqrt{\frac{\log k}{k}}))$-selectable for $k$-uniform matroids against an almighty adversary. This guarantee is matched by the (known) simple greedy algorithm that accepts every active element with probability $1-\Theta(\sqrt{\frac{\log k}{k}})$ [HKS07].Comment: 26 pages, 15th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science (ITCS 2024