Privacy Nudging: How the Design of Privacy Settings Affects Disclosure in Social Networks

Privacy settings in online social networks are meant to give users more control over their personal information and to manage self-disclosure in a way that best suits their privacy preferences. However, previous research has shown that the mere design of privacy settings influences disclosure decisions, potentially leading to adverse decisions. Privacy nudging is an approach to improve privacy decisions by deliberately designing choice environments like user interfaces. However, this approach requires a thorough understanding of the impact of different design parameters on disclosure behavior. Based on an online experiment, we aim to investigate the effect of various design parameters applied in practice by online social network providers on individuals’ disclosure behavior: 1) response order, 2) response preselection, 3) interaction mechanism, and 4) question order. We expect our research to contribute to the literature on information privacy in general and privacy nudging in particular by providing new and valuable insights into the effectiveness of these interventions, which will also allow us to derive practical recommendations for social network providers.