Delaying Informed Consent: An Empirical Investigation of Mobile Apps’ Upgrade Decisions
中文摘要
为回应用户对个人数据选择权和控制权不断变化的诉求，各行业的众多平台一直在更新隐私政策。与强制统一合规的公共监管不同，许多平台为互补者采纳隐私政策提供了更灵活的时间窗口。尽管已有若干研究考察了隐私政策的影响，但在时间灵活性下延迟采纳政策的后果在很大程度上仍未被探讨。本研究是最早考察应用在隐私政策变更背景下延迟采纳政策之影响的研究之一。我们的研究背景是升级至Android 6.0版本，该版本赋予消费者对其个人数据更多控制权。应用获得了三年的宽限期来采纳新隐私政策，在此期间未采纳该政策的应用仍可在最新Android版本上运行。我们利用应用在政策采纳上的这一差异来考察其对应用市场表现的影响。通过在模拟器上安装超过13,691款热门应用，我们精确检测了每款应用升级至6.0版本的时间。我们将这一独特数据集与多个数据集相结合，以量化延迟升级的影响。我们发现，延迟升级会导致应用下载量和用户评分的显著下降。频繁地维护应用而不升级只能部分缓解这些下降。在进一步考察谁延迟升级以及为何延迟时，我们发现，展示应用内广告和过度索取权限的应用更可能延迟升级，这表明市场表现与持续收集数据能力之间存在策略性权衡。我们的研究发现凸显了在设计政策实施时需审慎考虑参与者潜在策略性行为的必要性。我们讨论了研究发现的理论与实践意涵。
Abstract
In response to users’ evolving desire for choice and control over their personal data, numerous platforms across sectors have been updating privacy policies. Unlike public regulations that mandate uniform compliance, many platforms grant a more flexible time window for complementors to adopt privacy policies. Although several studies have examined the impact of privacy policies, the consequences of delayed policy adoption under time flexibility remain largely unexplored. This study is among the first to investigate the impact of apps delaying policy adoption in the context of a privacy policy change. The context of our research is the upgrade to Android version 6.0, which gave consumers more control over their personal data. Apps were given a three-year grace period to adopt the new privacy policy, during which apps that did not adopt the policy could still run on the latest Android version. We leverage this variation in policy adoption by apps to examine its impact on apps’ marketplace outcomes. By installing over 13,691 popular apps on emulators, we detect exactly when each app upgrades to version 6.0. We combine this unique data set with multiple data sets to quantify the impact of delaying the upgrade. We find that delaying the upgrade results in a significant loss of downloads and user ratings for apps. Frequently maintaining the apps without upgrading can only partially mitigate these declines. In further examining who delays upgrades and why, we find that apps that display in-app advertising and overreach for permissions are more likely to delay upgrading, suggesting a strategic trade-off between marketplace outcomes and the ability to collect data continuously. The findings of our study highlight the need to carefully consider participants’ potential strategic behaviors in designing policy implementation. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.