eSociety New Research: Privacy and Self-disclosure online

New research funded by an Economic and Social Research Council grant under the e-Society programme includes this project on "Privacy and Self-disclosure online".

Why are some people more willing to disclose personal information on the Internet than others? This latest e-Society project seeks the answer to this question by testing whether socio-legal approaches to understanding privacy offline can be applied to online behaviour.

Disclosing personal and often sensitive information is critical to developing trust between humans. Increasingly, we also need to disclose such information to relative strangers and online information systems.

The project will examine what determines people to disclose personal information online, the limits of that disclosure, and the consequences this has on the design of systems. Uniquely, the focus of the project will be on both the technology used to request personal information, and the social context in which the information is sought.

Modern technologies such as data mining pose a real threat to informational privacy. While concern about the privacy implications of new technology are nothing new, the development and linking of databases with biometrics, and the tension between the need for identification, protection of privacy and full participation in the e-society is a relatively new concern. This makes an understanding of the relations between privacy and the disclosure and use of personal information absolutely critical.

This project uses experimental social psychology methodology and psychometrics to investigate people’s willingness to disclose personal information. First, participants will complete measures of privacy concern and trust in online systems. Next, a series of experiments will examine the role of the audience / requestor characteristics, the design of disclosure-requiring websites and anonymity on disclosure behaviour. Finally, participants' earlier responses will be used to predict their later disclosure-based behaviour.

This project will be conducted by Adam Joinson, Tom Buchanan and Ulf-Dietrich Reips, from The Open University, University of Westminster and University of Zurich respectively. The project starts in January 2005 and will take a year to complete.

e-Society is the largest ever academic research programme to look at the impact of digital technologies particularly the internet, on our society and institutions. For more information on the e-Society programme, see the website linked below.

Associated Link: The eSociety programme

Study: Mobile Web sites need Improvement
Source: CNET, 13 October 2008
 
A new study suggests that the usability of many mobile Web sites still needs improvement.

Better Usability makes Online Backup more Appealing
Source: UN, 11 October 2008
 
Repeat after me: "Backup via the Internet is for everybody."

IBM Task Modeler version 6 now Available
Source: Unknown, 10 October 2008
 
The latest release of IBM Task Modeler is now available for download. This includes many new features to support efficient and collaborative task analysis and synthesis.

Caroline's Corner: Design to Read - Designing for People who do not Read easily
Source: Caroline Jarrett, 9 October 2008
 
Reading is a skill many of us take for granted. Chances are that if you’re reading this, you’re one of the lucky ones who read easily.

Bill Buxton to change Microsoft from within
Source: The Register, 8 October 2008
 
"Last year Steve Ballmer said to 85,000 employees 'If you don’t change and you don’t go in this direction, we’re dead, and I don’t want to die.' I wanted to go hug him when he said that."

New Report: Innovative Marketing in the Digital World
Source: E-consultancy, 7 October 2008
 
A new report from E-consultancy provides a distillation of ideas and suggestions provided by digital marketing experts.

Linking Industry with Academia
Source: unknown, 6 October 2008
 
Customer experience research consultancy, fhios, based in London, has just launched an innovative internship programme, aimed primarily at postgraduate students.

Online Travel Booking: What influences Consumers?
Source: Webcredible, 4 October 2008
 
What influences consumers when booking a holiday? How can travel companies offer the best user experience?

Getting the Word out
Source: UN, 3 October 2008
 
I SAID, I'M ON THE TRAIN... Voice recognition technology can now translate all those pesky garbled voicemails into manageable text messages.

Mobile hardware outpaces Software and User Capabilities
Source: ComputerWorld, 2 October 2008
 
The main issue dissuading users from employing all the capabilities of their mobile devices is the complexity involved in operating them.