Opportunity cost analysis of android smartphones' permissions

Abstract

OF THE THESIS Opportunity Cost Analysis of Android Smartphones’ Permissions by Swapnil Sarode Thesis Director: Prof. Janne Lindqvist This thesis provides the opportunity cost for reading androids permission model. We investigate the opportunity cost for users and an example nation (United States), if people would actually read these permission screens during installation time.While the Federal Trade Commission and reserachers try to protect users’ privacy and to improve their comfort level with mobile applications, users still remain unaware of these changes. Users are given a choice to overview the permissions an app would use and have to make an on the spot decision to accept these and move forward with the installation. In this research we project the time required by an average user if they were to read the permissions and compute the monetary value of that time in different situations. An average user may spend half an hour in overviewing permission screens bearing maximum opportunity cost of $23 and a minimum of $3 based on whether it was read at work or leisure. Other than this, if the users decide to read the details of these permissions as well, they will spend more time and hence bear more cost. Reading permissions with details would require users to spend two and half hours annually with a maximum cost of $106 and minimum of $13. An entire nation (United States) would have to invest a minimum of $174 million and a maximum of $6 billion, in reading permissions.