Estimating the Value of Personal Information with SNS Utility

Along with the dramatic growth in the use of the Internet, online services such as social networking sites have become more and more popular and sophisticated. However, at the same time, the collection of life-log data, and in particular the use of this collected personal information, has widely raised public concern regarding privacy protection. In this study, we divide personal information into three categories and find that people are more sensitive about their personal identifiers than other types of information such as demographic information or preferences. We also attempt to measure the value compatibility with online services by using survey questions that ask online users how much they are willing to pay to protect (limited disclosure or complete non-disclosure) their personal information. The responses revealed that people are willing to shoulder the cost to keep using online services if they think the service is attractive enough.