The Value of Privacy

"Because of [the] uncertainty about what the value of privacy is, people don't know when to value their information or how to care about it.   And as a consequence, when people are uncertain, their judgments are often influenced by seemingly arbitrary contextual factors" (Why We Blab Our Intimate Secrets on Facebook, Leslie K. John, 2012).

This Harvard researcher used a number of experiments to show that people are more likely to reveal personal information on informal websites where there is no promise that their information will be confidential. The act of reading about confidentiality causes readers to become more reticent. Dr. John has published a number of papers on personal privacy, as can be seen from her page at Harvard University.

-DD