Abstract

Privacy is considered a fundamental inalienable right in most western democracies, and yet the understanding of privacy varies considerably among people. Research shows that people exhibit several paradoxical privacy behaviors. We contend that some of these paradoxical behaviors are related to privacy literacy. In this research we define privacy literacy and present scales to measure this literacy. We then associate the paradoxical behaviors with privacy literacy. We also contend that temporal discounting plays a significant role in some paradoxical behaviors because some individuals place a high value on short-term rewards which cause them to behave in ways that may be counter to their longterm intentions. Our overarching research goal is to understand the motives (e.g. tangible rewards, curiosity, fame etc.) that lead users to voluntarily disclose their private information.

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