Publication Details
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Florian Bemmann, Sven Mayer
The Impact of Data Privacy on Users' Smartphone App Adoption Decisions MobileHCI 2024, Sept. 30 - Oct. 3, 2024, Melbourne, Australia (bib) |
Rich user information is gained through user tracking and power mobile smartphone applications. Apps thereby become aware of the user and their context, enabling intelligent and adaptive applications. However, such data poses severe privacy risks. Although users are only partially aware of them, awareness increases with the proliferation of privacy-enhancing technologies. How privacy literacy and raising privacy concerns affect app adoption is unclear; however, we hypothesize that it leads to a lower adoption rate of data-heavy smartphone apps, as non-usage often is the userâs only option to protect themselves. We conducted a survey (N=100) to investigate the relationship between privacy-relevant app- and publisher characteristics with the usersâ intention to install and use it. We found that users are especially critical of contentful data types and apps with rights to perform actions on their behalf. On the other hand, the expectation of a productive benefit induced by the app can increase the app-adoption intention. Our findings show which aspects designers of privacy-enhancing technologies should focus on to meet the demand for more user-centered privacy. |