Towards a mechanism for incentivating privacy

Abstract

The economic value of rich user profiles is an incentive for providers to collect more personal (and sensitive) information than the minimum amount needed for deploying services effectively and securely. With a game-theoretic approach, we show that provider competition can reduce such information requests. The key is a suitable mechanism, roughly reminiscent of a Vickrey auction subject to integrity constraints. We show that our mechanism induces rational providers to ask exactly for the user information strictly necessary to deliver their service effectively and securely. In this framework, maximal attribute disclosures become more difficult to achieve. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.