Incentive Centered Design

Making the Internet Safe, Fun, and Profitable

STIET News

 In the News: Recent STIET PhD Eytan Bakshy's paper "The Role of Social Networks in Information Diffusion" is getting a lot of attention -- see Tech Crunch and Slate.

 News Note: WSU STIET faculty member, Robert Reynolds, STIET fellow Leonard Kinniard-Heether, and REU student Tracy Liu won first place in the IEEE Super Mario Competition and best student paper prize at the 2010 IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence in Barcelona, Spain.

 Press Release -- World Wide Research Reshaping the Sciences and Humanities, edited by William H. Dutton and Paul W. Jeffreys includes contributions by STIET faculty member, Steve Jackson, and STIET fellow, Cory Knobel.

Contact STIET

STIET Program
University of Michigan
3373 North Quad
105 S. State St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285
voice (734) 647-6333
fax (734) 615-3587

User login

Home
» Jan 15 Seminar: Alessandro Acquisti

Jan 15 Seminar: Alessandro Acquisti

Date: 
Thu, 01/15/2009 - 11:00am - 12:30pm
Seminar Information: 

Alessandro Acquisti

Assistant Professor of Information Technology and Public Policy, Heinz School of Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon University

"The Best of Strangers: Behavioral economics, Malleable privacy valuations, and Context-dependent willingness to divulge personal information"
Location: 

4-5:30 pm
UM: 1202 SI North, 1075 Beal Ave
WSU: 313 State Hall (via videoconference)

Alessandro Acquisti
Seminar Description: 

We investigate privacy valuations and decision making through the lenses of behavioral economics. Contrary to the assumption in much social science that people have stable, coherent preferences with respect to personal privacy, we find that privacy valuations (measured by willingness to trade-off personal information for monetary rewards) and concerns about privacy (measured by divulgence of private information) are highly sensitive to contextual factors. We report results from a number of experiments, one of which was designed to measure individual willingness to pay to protect and willingness to accept to divulge personal data; while others were designed to elicit or to suppress privacy concerns. This research raises questions about whether individuals are able to navigate in a self-interested fashion increasingly complex issues of privacy.

Seminar Speaker Bio: 

Alessandro Acquisti is an Assistant Professor of Information Technology and Public Policy at the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon University, and a member of Carnegie Mellon Cylab. His work investigates the economic and social impact of IT, and in particular the economics of privacy and the behavioral economics of privacy and information security. Alessandro's work has also focused on the economics of computers and AI, agents economics, computational economics, ecommerce, cryptography, anonymity, and electronic voting. His research in these areas has been disseminated through journals (including Marketing Science, Journal of Comparative Economics, IEEE Security & Privacy, and Rivista di Politica Economica); edited books ("Digital Privacy: Theory, Technologies, and Practices.'' Auerbach, 2007); book chapters; and leading international conferences. His findings have been featured in media outlets such as NPR Fresh Air, NBC, MSNBC.com, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the New Scientist. His research interests include: economics of privacy and behavioral economics of privacy and information security, economics of computers and AI, agents economics, computational economics, ecommerce, cryptography, anonymity, electronic voting, and Nutella. http://www.heinz.cmu.edu/faculty-and-research/faculty-profiles/faculty-d...