Is personally identifiable information really more valuable? Evidence from consumers' willingness-to-accept valuation of their privacy information

Information privacy is not yet a mature product. The amount of monetary reward that firms should pay consumers to obtain their data is unknown. This paper measures consumers' valuation of two types of personal information-personally identifiable information (PII) and non-PII, with the willing-to-accept (WTA) payoffs using a multi-study mixed-methods approach. We conducted two realistic auction experiments with 150 and 415 participants, respectively, as well as one interview study with 31 participants and a meta-analysis study to explain international differences in WTA prices between China and other countries. We found that while consumers claimed that PII was more valuable than non-PII in the interview study, they did not demand a higher WTA price when monetizing PII in the two experimental studies. However, consumers became more cautious and provided fewer data items when dealing with PII, compared to non-PII. Consumers may ask for a higher price for non-PII than PII when they need to disclose more information. They also strategically select information being disclosed, if possible, to reduce privacy risk. Context only matters in WTA price for certain types of data, which is medical PII data in our case. Specifically, the WTA price for PII is higher in the medical information context than in the shopping information context. The meta-analysis shows that individualism and uncertainty avoidance are two key cultural dimensions explaining international differences in WTA prices.

Automated summary

Information privacy is still not fully understood in terms of its value, and it is unclear how much firms should pay consumers to obtain their data. This study found that although consumers believe personally identifiable information (PII) is more valuable than non-PII, they do not demand a higher price when monetizing PII. However, consumers are more cautious and provide less data when dealing with PII compared to non-PII. The context and cultural dimensions such as individualism and uncertainty avoidance play a role in explaining international differences in willingness-to-accept (WTA) prices.