With the emerging sensing technologies such as mobile crowdsensing and
Internet of Things (IoT), people-centric data can be efficiently collected and
used for analytics and optimization purposes. This data is typically required
to develop and render people-centric services. In this paper, we address the
privacy implication, optimal pricing, and bundling of people-centric services.
We first define the inverse correlation between the service quality and privacy
level from data analytics perspectives. We then present the profit maximization
models of selling standalone, complementary, and substitute services.
Specifically, the closed-form solutions of the optimal privacy level and
subscription fee are derived to maximize the gross profit of service providers.
For interrelated people-centric services, we show that cooperation by service
bundling of complementary services is profitable compared to the separate sales
but detrimental for substitutes. We also show that the market value of a
service bundle is correlated with the degree of contingency between the
interrelated services. Finally, we incorporate the profit sharing models from
game theory for dividing the bundling profit among the cooperative service
providers.Comment: 16 page