Many argue that personalization is needed in a modern marketing strategy. Whilst there are several positive aspects of personalization, e.g. improved customer satisfaction rates, it can also lead to firms being perceived as intrusive and elicit privacy concerns. This dilemma describes the personalization paradox, which refers to the two-sided results of using personalized communication by collecting and analyzing consumer data. To address the issue of how firms balance the need for personalization while still respecting consumers’ privacy, previous researchers have mainly investigated the issue from the consumer perspective. However, the consumer is believed to display a paradoxical behavior in regards to personalization. Therefore, we have addressed this issue through interviewing 12 company representatives from 7 companies. Our findings indicate that companies are mindful when creating personalized content and do acknowledge the issues with privacy and the risk of being perceived as intrusive. To overcome the personalization paradox, firms are not explicit about their data analysis in their personalized communication as this can lead to consumers feeling discomfort. Finally, an essential way that firms can prevent privacy concerns is to create relevant content as this outweighs feelings of discomfort. These findings to a certain extent do not reflect the empirical research on the topic, however the discrepancies may exist as previous studies were conducted from the consumer side.

In the play store today, users are shown download count, app rating, reviews, screenshots etc. when deciding to download an application, and it’s shown very conveniently. If the users however are interested in viewing privacy in- formation about the application, it is multiple clicks away and there is no default in how to display it. This is where privacy indicators come in handy. With privacy indicators, data can be analyzed and displayed to the user in a way they understand, even if they don’t understand what the data itself means and what is dangerous. This however comes with the challenge of deciding what is dangerous and what is not. This report creates and implements an app store with added privacy infor- mation displayed to the user in the form of a privacy indicator and some detailed information about each application. To test the effectiveness of the privacy indicator, a small scale study was conducted where it was discovered that users who were not already interested in privacy didn’t pay much at- tention to it, while those who were took it more into account when deciding to download applications.

As Information and Communication technology (ICT) has rapidly advanced in China, parental monitoring may invasively penetrate into children's privacy, while China is lagging behind on the issue of children privacy protection. Privacy is invaluable to human development, and children do have interests in their privacy. This thesis is going to investigate under which condition it is desirable for parents to apply ICT techniques to monitor children, which does not invade children's privacy. Before reaching the decision of carrying out monitoring, the intent and the necessity of monitoring should be considered. Children should be informed and their consent should be acquired before deploying monitoring. After the decision is made, the proportionality of monitoring practice requires parents to opt for the least invasive and the most necessary approach. Besides parental monitoring, states and schools can offer media literacy education to enable children to protect themselves from privacy infringement.

Brinquedos infantis tornaram-se sofisticados ao longo dos anos, evoluindo de produtos físicos simples a brinquedos que acoplam o mundo digital por meio de software e hardware. Com essa sofisticação, veio à tona potenciais problemas de segurança e privacidade infantil em relação ao uso de brinquedos inteligentes. Um brinquedo inteligente consiste de um componente de brinquedo físico conectado a um sistema computacional com serviços on-line para melhorar a funcionalidade de um brinquedo tradicional. Esse tipo de brinquedo ainda não é amplamente conhecido em países com economia em desenvolvimento, como o Brasil. Dessa forma, não se sabe a opinião de consumidores desse tipo de país em relação à aceitação dessa tecnologia quando ela estiver disponível. Esta dissertação de mestrado realizou um estudo comparativo entre países de diferentes níveis de desenvolvimento, avaliando a percepção sobre segurança e privacidade infantil em relação a brinquedos inteligentes. Aspectos como intenção de compra e percepção de inovação foram levados em consideração, pois essas duas percepções podem influenciar a percepção sobre segurança e privacidade infantil. Essas comparações de percepções ainda foram consideradas para variações de gênero e níveis de escolaridade, considerando pessoas de diferentes países de desenvolvimento. Com uma revisão sistemática, constatou-se que não há trabalhos que abordem a percepção sobre segurança e privacidade infantil relacionada a brinquedos inteligentes, comparando países de economia avançada e em desenvolvimento. Para a realização desta dissertação de mestrado, um survey com a aplicação de um questionário foi considerado. Antecedendo a aplicação do questionário, uma entrevista com 14 participantes foi realizada para refinar o questionário que estava em construção. Para analisar os resultados, os testes de estatística não paramétrica Mann Whitney e teste de Independência de Qui-quadrado foram usados para três hipóteses, considerando percepção sobre segurança e privacidade infantil, intenção de compra e percepção de inovação referente a brinquedos inteligentes em relação ao nível de desenvolvimento do país, tratando também de gênero e nível de escolaridade dos participantes. O primeiro resultado obtido, é que há diferença significativa entre os países de diferentes níveis de desenvolvimento em relação a segurança e privacidade infantil no uso a brinquedos inteligentes, sendo que, os países com economia avançada mostram maior preocupação. Em relação à intenção de compra e percepção de inovação, não foi detectada diferença significativa entre os países de diferentes níveis de desenvolvimento. Para co-variáveis como gênero e nível de escolaridade, há diferenças significativas de percepção em relação às três hipóteses se tratando de grupos específicos em relação ao nível de desenvolvimento de países. Por exemplo, testes realizados apenas com o gênero feminino, retornaram diferença significativa. Com os resultados deste mestrado, pesquisas maiores relacionadas podem ser consideradas. Além de que, estratégias de marketing podem ser melhoradas de acordo com as diferenças de percepções encontradas de pessoas que vivem em países de diferentes níveis de desenvolvimento / Children\'s toys have become sophisticated over the years, evolving from simple physical products to toys that engage the digital world through software and hardware. With such sophistication, potential child safety and privacy issues have surfaced concerning the use of smart toys. A smart toy consists of a physical toy component connected to a computer system with online services to enhance the functionality of a traditional toy. This type of toy is not yet widely known in economically developing countries such as Brazil. In this way, the opinion of consumers of this type of country is not known with respect to the acceptance of this technology when it is available. This master\'s research carried out a comparative study among countries with different levels of development, assessing the perception of child safety and privacy about intelligent toys. Aspects such as purchase intent and perception of innovation were taken into account, since these two perceptions may influence perceptions about child safety and privacy. These comparisons of perceptions were still considered for variations in gender and educational levels, considering people from different developing countries. With a systematic review, it was found that there are no studies that address the perception of children\'s safety and privacy related to intelligent toys, comparing countries of advanced and developing economies. For the accomplishment of this masters dissertation, a survey with the application of a structured questionnaire was considered. Before the application of the questionnaire, a interview with 14 participants was performed to refine the questionnaire that was under construction. In order to analyze the results, the non-parametric Mann Whitney test and the Chi-square Independence test were used for three hypotheses considering perceptions about child safety and privacy, purchase intention and perception of innovation regarding smart toys in relation to the level of the country\'s development, also dealing with the gender and level of schooling of the participants. The first result obtained is that there is a significant difference between countries of different levels of development regarding children\'s safety and privacy in the use of smart toys, and countries with advanced economies show greater concern. In relation to the purchase intention and perception of innovation, no significant difference was detected between the countries with different levels of development. For covariables such as gender and educational level, there are significant perceptual differences about the three hypotheses when dealing with specific groups about the level of development of countries. For example, tests performed only with the female gender, returned significant difference. With the results of this masters degree, major related research can be considered. In addition to that, marketing strategies can be improved according to the differences of perceptions found in people living in countries with different levels of development

Thesis advisor: Danny G. Willis / Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative research was to describe the phenomenon of privacy as experienced and conceptualized by patients who participated in the CenteringPregnancy model of group healthcare. Background: In healthcare, privacy is an ethical and legal right. Healthcare providers have an obligation to protect patient privacy and confidentiality. Group healthcare is an innovative approach that brings together a group of patients with a team of providers, offering the opportunity for holistic, integrated, and coordinated healthcare. Group healthcare challenges how healthcare providers manage privacy and confidentiality. Knowledge about patients’ experiences of privacy during group healthcare such as CenteringPregnancy is fundamental to developing an understanding of the risks and benefits incurred during group healthcare visits. Research focused on uncovering the patient experience of privacy within the context of group healthcare can provide useful direction for improving the patient care experience and health outcomes. Research Questions: 1) What is the privacy experience of women who participated in CenteringPregnancy? 2) How does the patient experience of privacy in a group healthcare setting differ from the experience of privacy during individual care? Methods: This qualitative research used phenomenography to examine the experiences of privacy for 15 women who participated in CenteringPregnancy at a large multisite, multispecialty healthcare practice. Results: Four main concepts related to privacy were identified. My Privacy: Agency of the Self emerged as the primary conception of privacy for both group and individual care settings. My Provider: Protecting My Privacy focused on the critical role of the group facilitator in protecting confidentiality and establishing group privacy. The Dynamics of Group Privacy encompassed the relational processes of trusting, respecting, and sharing. Benefits of Participating in Group Healthcare included friendship, comradery, learning, and relief of feelings of isolation, fear, and anxiety. Conclusions: Women’s experiences of privacy within the context of CenteringPregnancy were positive. Findings can guide recruitment efforts and the facilitation and management of the group environment. Healthcare providers can offer a full description of privacy within group healthcare settings as part of recruitment and informed consent and emphasize the shared responsibility for group privacy among all members in the group. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Connell School of Nursing. / Discipline: Nursing.

Right to be Forgotten - Right to Privacy in the Internet Age Abstract The first chapter of the diploma thesis aims to identify the threats to human privacy and forgetting that were brought on by the advancements in the field of information and communication technology in the recent decades. Both privacy and forgetting have important functions in the life of the individual, as well as on the societal level. The protection of those functions, whose analysis can be found in the second chapter of the diploma thesis, is one of the basic tasks of modern, liberal and democratic societies. Unless we want to leave the evolution of our civilization up to the technological developments and their often unforeseen (and unforeseeable) consequences, it is imperative that we systematically evaluate their impact on society. Such evaluations should then serve as bases for devising regulation (both legal and non- legal) that would eliminate or at least mitigate the identified societal threats. In the context of human privacy and forgetting, one of the outcomes of such an impact assessment and regulatory consideration is the right to be forgotten. This right can be seen as a legal instrument protecting the informational aspect of human privacy, or rather the informational self-determination of individuals, in the new reality...

E-commerce and transaction on the internet is getting more and more common in every individual’s life. More than 40 % of the worldwide Internet users have bought or made transactions through the internet. This means that there is more than 1 billion online buyers and these numbers will continue to grow. Due to the growth of E-commerce, organizations are searching and creating new technologies for obtaining and processing data regarding consumer’s privacy information. This tends to become a concern for the consumer about how the organizations treat and user the personal information about a specific individual, the purpose for this study is to examine and compare how big and small organizations works with privacy policies and personal information. The target group for this study is organizations that collects and obtain personal information. This is a comparative study with a Qualitative approach. Theory and collected data from the organizations have been compared, the interview method conducted was Semi- structured interviews. One small and one big organization have been interviewed and the collected data from the two organizations has then been compared against each other to find differences and similarities about how a small and a big organization work with privacy. The selection of the respondents for the interviews have been selected through different criteria’s where one the organizations works with E-commerce. The conclusion of this study is that there are no concrete differences regarding privacy policies between the two organizations that participated in this study although some small differences were found regarding the development of the privacy policies.

Os conceitos de privado, público e íntimo sofreram transformações importantes a partir do surgimento das novas tecnologias da informação. Se, por um lado, é possível notar um refinamento das técnicas de controle e vigilância, que levariam ao questionamento da privacidade enquanto um direito individual e à violação da esfera privada, por outro, essas tecnologias permitem certo exercício reflexivo que conduz a novas vivências do privado, do público e do íntimo. Partindo, portanto, do exame da sociabilidade que surge no orkut, esta pesquisa tencionou analisar como se configuram essas novas vivências, observando que, embora a dinâmica desta sociabilidade revele afinidades com os objetivos da sociedade de controle, ela também possibilita a liberdade para criar identidades e para redefinir as regras que orientam a vida, estimulando um tipo de reflexão que aponta para o fortalecimento da política. / The concepts of private, public and the intimacy have suffered important changes since the new information technologies took part of the everyday life. If, on the one hand, it is possible to observe a certain refinement of the techniques of control and vigilance, on the other, these technologies allow a reflexive exercise that leads to new experiences of the private, public and the intimacy. Through the examination of the sociability that takes place at orkut, this research tried to analyze how these new experiences have been configured, observing that, despite of the dynamic of this sociability reveals affinities with the objectives of the control society, it also allows the liberty to create identities and to redefine the rules that guide the life, stimulating a kind of reflection that points out the strengthening of the politics.

Users of social networking services such as Facebook often want to manage the sharing of information and content with different groups of people based on their differing relationships. The growing popularity of such services has meant that users are increasingly faced with the copresence of different groups associated with different aspects of their lives, within their network of contacts. However, few users are utilising the group-based privacy controls provided to them by the SNS provider. In this thesis we examine the reasons behind the lack of use of group-based privacy controls, finding that it can be largely attributed to the significant burden associated with group configuration. We aim to overcome this burden by developing automated mechanisms to assist users with many aspects of group-based privacy control, including initial group configuration, labeling, adjustment and selection of groups for sharing privacy sensitive content. We use a mixed methods approach in order to understand: how automated mechanisms should be designed in order to support users with their privacy control, how well these mechanisms can be expected to work, what the limitations are, and how such mechanisms affect users’ experiences with social networking services and content sharing. Our results reveal the criteria that SNS users employ in order to configure their groups for privacy control and illustrate that off-the-shelf algorithms and techniques which are analogous to these criteria can be used to support users. We show that structural network clustering algorithms provide benefits for initial group configuration and that clustering threshold adjustments and detection of hubs and outliers with the network are necessary for group adjustment. We demonstrate that public profile data can be extracted from the network in order to help users to comprehend their groups, and that contextual information relating to context, contacts, and content can be used to make recommendations about which groups might be useful for disclosure in a given situation. We also show that all of these mechanisms can be used to significantly reduce the burden of privacy control and that users react positively to such features.

"Personal health record (PHR) service is an emerging model for health information exchange. It allows patients to create, manage, control and share their health information with other users as well as healthcare providers. In reality, a PHR service is likely to be hosted by third-party cloud service providers in order to enhance its interoperability. However, there have been serious privacy concerns about outsourcing PHR data to cloud servers, not only because cloud providers are generally not covered entities under HIPAA, but also due to an increasing number of cloud data breach incidents happened in recent years. In this thesis, we propose a privacy-preserving PHR system using attribute-based encryption (ABE). In this system, patients can encrypt their PHRs and store them on semi-trusted cloud servers such that servers do not have access to sensitive PHR contexts. Meanwhile patients maintain full control over access to their PHR files, by assigning fine-grained, attribute-based access privileges to selected data users, while different users can have access to different parts of their PHR. Our system also provides extra features such as populating PHR from professional electronic health record (EHR) using ABE. In order to evaluate our proposal, we create a Linux library that implement primitive of key-policy attribute-based encryption (KP-ABE) algorithms. We also build a PHR application based on Indivo PCHR system that allow doctors to encrypt and submit their prescription and diagnostic note to PHR servers using KP-ABE. We evaluate the performance efficiency of different ABE schemes as well as the data query time of Indivo PCHR system when PHR data are encrypted under ABE scheme."