Privacy Expectations of Social Media Users: The Role of Informed Consent in Privacy Policies
Custers B.H.M., Hof S. van der & Schermer B. (2014), Privacy Expectations of Social Media Users: The Role of Informed Consent in Privacy Policies, Policy and Internet 6(3): 268-295
23 Pages Posted: 5 Oct 2017 Last revised: 7 Oct 2017
Date Written: 2014
Abstract
Social media process (sometimes large amounts of) personal data of their users, usually on the basis of informed consent. In this article, a comparison is made between, on the one hand, existing practices of social media regarding informed consent for using personal data of users and, on the other hand, user expectations with regard to privacy and informed consent. The comparison is made on the basis of a set of criteria for informed consent distilled from an analytical bibliography. Next, the privacy policies of a selection of eight social network sites and user generated content sites are analyzed using this set of criteria for informed consent. User expectations regarding these criteria were derived from survey results of a large EU-wide online survey (N¼8,621, 26 countries) on the awareness, values, and attitudes of social media users regarding privacy. We find that not all privacy policy criteria are important to users, but most criteria that are important to users can be found in most privacy policies.
Keywords: Informed Consent, Privacy Policy, User Expectations, Social Media
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