How much is privacy worth around the world and across platforms?

Abstract

Using carefully designed discrete choice surveys, we measure individuals' valuation of online privacy across countries (United States, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, and Germany) and data types (personal information on finances, biometrics, location, networks, communications, and web browsing). We find that Germans value privacy more than do people in the United States and Latin American countries. Across countries, people most value privacy for financial (bank balance) and biometric (fingerprint) information. People had to be paid the least for permission to receive ads—respondents in Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico would even pay for them—followed by location privacy. We discuss privacy policy implications.