Reasoning about privacy in mobile application install decisions: Risk perception and framing

Abstract

• Users’ risk perception towards mobile privacy can be influenced by the subjective experience of ease or difficulty of bringing privacy concerns or potential risks to mind. • Users are more likely to install a low privacy rated app when generation fluency for privacy concerns is lower due to downgraded risk perception caused by difficult generation experience. • Users consider privacy as part of the app-install decision-making process if privacy information is presented in a simple and salient way. Data sharing has become prevalent with the rapid growth of mobile technologies. A lack of awareness and understanding of privacy practices often results in the installation of privacy-invasive applications (apps) which could potentially put users' personal data at risk. This study aimed to explore how users’ risk perception could be shifted towards more privacy-aware decisions through generation fluency and framing manipulations. It is an online study composed of three components, an experiment and two questionnaires. We manipulated the availability of privacy worries, by asking participants to generate either 2 or 10 privacy worries. Generating 10 worries was experienced as difficult, whereas generating 2 was easy. The difficult experience led to downgraded perception of risk, and consequently increased likelihood of installing a low privacy rated fictional app. Therefore, we suggest that improving generation fluency of privacy concerns could encourage users’ adoption of a more conservative judgment strategy when installing an app, safeguarding them against privacy-invasive apps.