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The surprising power of a click requirement: How click requirements and warnings affect users’ willingness to disclose personal information

What kinds of information and alerts might cause internet users to be more cautious about what they reveal online? We used a 25-item survey to determine whether the strength of Terms of Service (TOS) warnings and the inclusion of a click requirement affect people’s willingness to admit to engaging i...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Epstein, Robert, Zankich, Vanessa R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8856545/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35180222
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263097
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author Epstein, Robert
Zankich, Vanessa R.
author_facet Epstein, Robert
Zankich, Vanessa R.
author_sort Epstein, Robert
collection PubMed
description What kinds of information and alerts might cause internet users to be more cautious about what they reveal online? We used a 25-item survey to determine whether the strength of Terms of Service (TOS) warnings and the inclusion of a click requirement affect people’s willingness to admit to engaging in inappropriate behaviors. A racially and ethnically diverse group of 1,500 people participated in the study; 98.3% were from the US and India and the remainder from 18 other countries. Participants were randomly assigned to five different groups in which warnings and click requirements varied. In the control condition, no warning was provided. In the four experimental groups, two factors were varied in a 2 × 2 factorial design: strength of warning and click requirement. We found that strong warnings were more effective than weak warnings in decreasing personal disclosures and that click requirements added to the deterrent power of both strong and weak warnings. We also found that a commonly used TOS warning has no impact on disclosures. Participants in the control group provided 32.8% more information than participants in the two click requirement groups combined and 24.3% more information than participants in the four experimental groups combined. The pattern according to which people dropped out of the five different groups sheds further light on the surprising power of the click requirement, as well as on the importance of tracking attrition in online studies.
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spelling pubmed-88565452022-02-19 The surprising power of a click requirement: How click requirements and warnings affect users’ willingness to disclose personal information Epstein, Robert Zankich, Vanessa R. PLoS One Research Article What kinds of information and alerts might cause internet users to be more cautious about what they reveal online? We used a 25-item survey to determine whether the strength of Terms of Service (TOS) warnings and the inclusion of a click requirement affect people’s willingness to admit to engaging in inappropriate behaviors. A racially and ethnically diverse group of 1,500 people participated in the study; 98.3% were from the US and India and the remainder from 18 other countries. Participants were randomly assigned to five different groups in which warnings and click requirements varied. In the control condition, no warning was provided. In the four experimental groups, two factors were varied in a 2 × 2 factorial design: strength of warning and click requirement. We found that strong warnings were more effective than weak warnings in decreasing personal disclosures and that click requirements added to the deterrent power of both strong and weak warnings. We also found that a commonly used TOS warning has no impact on disclosures. Participants in the control group provided 32.8% more information than participants in the two click requirement groups combined and 24.3% more information than participants in the four experimental groups combined. The pattern according to which people dropped out of the five different groups sheds further light on the surprising power of the click requirement, as well as on the importance of tracking attrition in online studies. Public Library of Science 2022-02-18 /pmc/articles/PMC8856545/ /pubmed/35180222 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263097 Text en © 2022 Epstein, Zankich https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Epstein, Robert
Zankich, Vanessa R.
The surprising power of a click requirement: How click requirements and warnings affect users’ willingness to disclose personal information
title The surprising power of a click requirement: How click requirements and warnings affect users’ willingness to disclose personal information
title_full The surprising power of a click requirement: How click requirements and warnings affect users’ willingness to disclose personal information
title_fullStr The surprising power of a click requirement: How click requirements and warnings affect users’ willingness to disclose personal information
title_full_unstemmed The surprising power of a click requirement: How click requirements and warnings affect users’ willingness to disclose personal information
title_short The surprising power of a click requirement: How click requirements and warnings affect users’ willingness to disclose personal information
title_sort surprising power of a click requirement: how click requirements and warnings affect users’ willingness to disclose personal information
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8856545/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35180222
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263097
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