This paper explores the importance of transparency and control to users in the context of inferred user interests. More specifically, we illustrate the association between various levels of control the users have on their inferred interests and users' trust in organizations that provide corresponding content. Our results indicate that users value transparency and control very differently. We segment users in two groups, one who states to not care about their personal interest model and another group that desires some level of control. We found substantial differences in trust impact between segments, depending on actual control option provided.

Online services often rely on processing users' data, which can be either provided directly by the users or combined from other services. Although users are aware of the latter, it is unclear whether they are comfortable with such data combination, whether they view it as beneficial for them, or the extent to which they believe that their privacy is exposed. Through an online survey (N=918) and follow-up interviews (N=14), we show that (1) comfort is highly dependent on the type of data, type of service and on the existence of a direct relationship with a company, (2) users have a highly different opinion about the presence of benefits for them, irrespectively of the context, and (3) users perceive the combination of online data as more identifying than data related to offline and physical behavior (such as location). Finally, we discuss several strategies for companies to improve upon these issues.

In most data control scenarios there is the opportunity for oversight by those who, while perhaps not directly involved in the creation of the data, understand the intended usage of the data. We argue that due to the proliferation of online data and our aging population, data owners will increasingly face requests for data access and usage when such oversight is not present because the original data owner/creator is unavailable (e.g. because of death or incapacitation). We outline the technical and user experience challenges in supporting this data usage scenario, focusing on the online service setting, and highlight some emerging research problems.

MARTIN ORTLIEB

Life-changing events (or LCEs) can alter a person's status quo and threaten well-being. Previous research investigated distinct LCEs, where participants already used technology routinely. This paper reports the results of two field studies through which we compared supports people refer to when experiencing different LCEs. Together with users of technology, our sampling included participants who specifically did not refer to online services and tools to seek help during their LCE. We found that popular services people refer to are inattentive to the needs of people experiencing an LCE as they do not allow forms of progressive engagement and disclosure within the service. We also found that popular services are imprudent as their design might expose users experiencing an LCE to more sources of stress. Finally, we found that these services are inapt to support these users as they do not provide direct forms of interactions with experts.

No abstract

Abstract:We present the results of a survey study ( = 1,200) investigating online users' privacy sensitivity towards exposing specific data items to service providers of the three most prominent online services in the UK: online retail, social networking and information search. The study, representative of the online population of the UK, presents proof for the context-dependence of privacy sensitivity and provides concrete quantitative results for specific data items (like full name or mobile phone number). One of the key results is that data that is considered essential in order for a service to work is seldomly rated as sensitive. We could also show that passively collected data is in general more sensitive than concrete data provided by the users. However, specific conditions like control and transparency can have positive/negative effects on the sensitivity of data in a specific context.

GSuite is changing the nature of Knowledge Work across 5 million businesses through AI‐powered assistance. To ensure that this evolution reflects the aspirations and priorities of workers, Google and Stripe Partners conducted a multi‐national ethnography of Knowledge Workers covering a range of industries. We identified that workers distinguish between ‘Core’ and ‘Peripheral’ work: the work they are paid to do and identify with, and the work that does not contribute to their success or happiness. Workers want assistance to enhance Core work and remove Peripheral work, nuanced across a spectrum of support. This framework and taxonomy has been adopted by teams at Google to inform strategic decisions on how AI is integrated by GSuite. New features are being implemented within Gmail, Slides, Docs and Sheets that bring these principles to life in the user experience.