We studied whether changes to the online environment, i.e. nudges, can lead to changes in privacy behaviour through an on-line experiment (n = 3229) across four European countries. The output measures were obtained through the answers to a questionnaire following a mock online exercise: one revealed the amount of personal information participants were willing to disclose, and the other whether they noticed a privacy policy link. The nudges appeared as changes in the design of a mock search engine (e.g. including an anthropomorphic character, highlighting prior browsing history or changing the look-and-feel to convey greater informality). The nudges did not lead to differences in the amount of personal information disclosed, but did affect whether participants noticed the privacy link or not. Socio-demographic factors were relevant. Compared to younger participants, older participants were less likely to reveal personal information but more likely to notice the privacy policy link. Men were more likely to reveal personal information than women, and more likely to notice the privacy policy link. Finally, significant differences were found between all countries. Participants from Italy chose to reveal least personal information (followed by those in Poland, Germany and the UK), and participants from the UK were significantly less likely to notice the privacy policy link. The implications for policy are that disclosure of personal information is resilient to small changes in the web environment, but this is not the case for awareness of a privacy policy link. Moreover, the fact that age, gender, and country of residence are relevant suggests that differentiated policy approaches depending on the target population may be warranted.
We conducted an incentivized lab experiment examining the effect of gain vs. lossframed warning messages on online security behavior. We measured the probability of suffering a cyberattack during the experiment as the result of five specific security behaviors: choosing a safe connection, providing minimum information during the sign-up process, choosing a strong password, choosing a trusted vendor, and loggingout. A loss-framed message led to more secure behavior during the experiment. The experiment also measured the effect of trusting beliefs and cybersecurity knowledge. Trusting beliefs had a negative effect on security behavior, while cybersecurity knowledge had a positive effect.
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