Abstract
One of the most vexing problems in privacy policy is identifying consumer harm from unwanted observation; because it is highly subjective and is likely to vary greatly throughout the population, it doesn’t lend itself to easy measurement. Yet, these types of situations increasingly are the focal point of privacy policy discussions, including the Supreme Court’s recent decisions regarding standing and the FTC’s recently announced commercial surveillance rulemaking. The primary approach to attempt to quantify subjective harms has been to measure consumers’ willingness to exchange personal data for money in an experimental setting. This study takes a different tack, using field data to measure actual consumer response to a real-world reduction in the anonymity of online search. In March 2012, Google began to combine user information across platforms. To the extent that Google’s policy change reduced the anonymity associated with Google search, it may have diminished incentives to search sensitive topics. Using Google Trends (GT) data and a difference-in-difference estimator with top non-sensitive search terms as the control group, the results suggest that there was a 3–7 % short-term (1–2 months) reduction in sensitive search (relative to the non-sensitive search control group), as measured by GT. I examine heterogenous treatment effects, and find that the largest measured impact is for health-related search. There is no measured difference in reaction between high- and low-privacy demand states.
Acknowledgments
I thank Jane Bambauer, Bruce Kobayashi, Siona Listokin, Hal Varian, participants at the FTC’s PrivacyCon and an anonymous reviewer for valuable comments. Ryan Lodata and Travis Royer provided outstanding research assistance.
Sensitive and non-sensitive search terms.
Sensitive terms | Average trends score (Jan 1, 2011 – Dec. 31, 2013) | Non-sensitive terms | Average trends score (Jan 1, 2011 – Dec. 31, 2013) |
---|---|---|---|
Abortion | 49.1 | Amazon | 53.0 |
Adultery | 37.9 | Apple | 44.6 |
Alcoholics anonymous | 43.1 | Calculator | 77.7 |
Bankruptcy | 54.8 | CNN | 30.3 |
Coming out | 54.7 | Craigslist | 73.7 |
Cutting | 59.5 | Ebay | 81.0 |
Eating disorder | 46.9 | ESPN | 56.3 |
Erectile dysfunction | 49.4 | 77.1 | |
Escort | 65.6 | Games | 63.0 |
Gender reassignment | 39.0 | 69.0 | |
Guns | 40.7 | Iphone | 37.4 |
KKK | 36.7 | 83.6 | |
HIV | 42.6 | Maps | 71.6 |
Online dating | 52.3 | Netflix | 58.9 |
Sexual addiction | 36.6 | News | 53.8 |
Sperm donation | 35.8 | Obama | 11.7 |
Strip club | 54.7 | Target | 40.6 |
Suicide | 49.1 | Walmart | 37.1 |
Viagra | 56.3 | Weather | 39.7 |
Weed | 52.2 | Yahoo | 84.3 |
White power | 43.2 | YouTube | 75.9 |
Estimated control period volume.
Term | GT score January 2019 | Average monthly volume January 2019 (000) | GT score control period | GT score ratio (Control/Jan 2019) | Estimated control period monthly volume (Thousands) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Abortion | 49 | 135 | 84.5 | 1.72 | 232.9 |
Adultery | 50 | 74 | 97 | 1.94 | 143.6 |
Alcoholics anonymous | 50 | 49.5 | 94 | 1.88 | 93.1 |
Bankruptcy | 60 | 135 | 97 | 1.62 | 218.3 |
Coming out | 91 | 12.1 | 65.5 | 0.72 | 8.7 |
Eating disorder | 70 | 74 | 74.5 | 1.06 | 78.8 |
Erectile dysfunction | 64 | 246 | 55 | 0.86 | 211.4 |
Escort | 100 | 1400 | 55.5 | 0.56 | 777 |
Gender reassignment | 34 | 1600 | 12 | 0.35 | 564.7 |
Guns | 40 | 860 | 63 | 1.58 | 1354.5 |
HIV | 41 | 201 | 49.5 | 1.21 | 242.7 |
Online dating | 42 | 40.5 | 88.5 | 2.11 | 85.3 |
Sexual addiction | 36 | 110 | 91.5 | 2.54 | 279.6 |
Sperm donation | 41 | 27.1 | 86 | 2.10 | 56.8 |
Strip club | 74 | 550 | 79.5 | 1.07 | 590.9 |
Viagra | 73 | 301 | 68 | 0.93 | 280.4 |
Total | 5218.7 |
State privacy demand laws.
State | Total | Employee email | Privacy policy | e-reader | Children | License plate | Social media | Constitution |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CA | 6 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
DE | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
CO | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
CT | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
TN | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
AR | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
AZ | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
FL | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
IL | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
LA | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
MD | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
ME | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
MT | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
NH | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
UT | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
WA | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
AK | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
HI | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
MI | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
MN | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
MO | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
NC | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
NE | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
NJ | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
NM | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
NV | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
OK | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
OR | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
RI | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
SC | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
VA | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
VT | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
WI | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
WV | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Mean | 1.76 | 0.12 | 0.08 | 0.12 | 0.06 | 0.35 | 0.74 | 0.29 |
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Expressive Law and Escalating Penalties: Accounting for the Educational Function of Punishment
- Do US State Breach Notification Laws Decrease Firm Data Breaches?
- Dark Web Drug Markets and Cartel Crime
- Intermittent Collusive Agreements: Antitrust Policy and Business Cycles
- Anonymity and Online Search: Measuring the Privacy Impact Of Google’s 2012 Privacy Policy Change
- Law and Economics of the Withdrawal Right in EU Consumer Law
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Expressive Law and Escalating Penalties: Accounting for the Educational Function of Punishment
- Do US State Breach Notification Laws Decrease Firm Data Breaches?
- Dark Web Drug Markets and Cartel Crime
- Intermittent Collusive Agreements: Antitrust Policy and Business Cycles
- Anonymity and Online Search: Measuring the Privacy Impact Of Google’s 2012 Privacy Policy Change
- Law and Economics of the Withdrawal Right in EU Consumer Law