Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
The survey results found broad categories of concern as follows:
Identity theft
• Financial loss
Digital world
• Access to personal data
• Really private stuff I searched on
• Unwanted spam
• Provocative photo (oh *&!$ my boss saw that)
• Unwanted solicitation
• Unwanted ad targeting
Physical world
• Offline threats/harassment
• Harm to my family
• Stalkers
• Employment risks
Thought Experiment: What Is the Best Way to Decrease
Concern and Increase Understanding and Control?
So given users' understandable concerns about privacy, students in
Rachel's class brainstormed some potential solutions that Google
could implement (or that anyone dealing with user-level data could
consider).
Possibilities:
• You could write and post a manifesto of your data policy. Google
tried that, but it turns out nobody likes to read manifestos.
• You could educate users on your policies a la the Netflix feature
“because you liked this, we think you might like this.” But it's not
always so easy to explain things in complicated models.
• You could simply get rid of all stored data after a year. But you'd
still need to explain that you do that.
Maybe we could rephrase the question: how do you design privacy
settings to make it easier for people? In particular, how do you make
it transparent? Here are some ideas along those lines:
