Abstract

Big data challenges personal data protection (Boyd, 2012). This paper is a contribution to the debate about the validity of the privacy self-management paradigm prevailing in western countries. I point out some limitations of the model notice and choice in which that paradigm is based in relation to the logic of big data processing. I also analyze the alternative model proposed by Solove (2013), to explain why it is not essentially different from notice and choice model. Finally, I expound on the necessity of developing a model which could be coherent with the logic of big data and its impact in privacy, both individual and collective.

Abstract

With the prevalence of smart devices and wireless Internet, privacy has become a pivotal matter in governmental, academic, and technological fields. Our study aims to understand Taiwanese university students’ privacy concerns and protective behaviours in relation to online targeting ads and their habitual smartphone usage. Surveying 810 valid subjects, our results first propose that ad relevance has direct bearing on attention to ads. Second, ad relevance inversely correlates with privacy concerns (i.e. descending personal control and surging corporate power) and protective behaviours (self-filtering and ad evasion). Third and finally, neither privacy concerns nor protective behaviours have a negative bearing on habitual smartphone usage. Opposite to previous research, our study concludes that Taiwanese college students exhibit zero privacy paradox, owing to no signs of privacy concern incited by mobile targeting ads, no evidence of significant protective behaviours, and no decreasing habitual smartphone usage out of privacy concern and protection. Our findings indicate Taiwanese university students’ shaky awareness of potential risks and crises from exposure to vulnerable online privacy management. To deal with this, we suggest educating youths’ understandings of digital jeopardy by experts is urgently needed more so than just technical tutorials of privacy settings.