Prisoner’s Dilemmas: XVII- Privacy Paradox

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A tension between privacy and the interests of law enforcement has eroded the Fourth Amendment. Our weathering privacy rights surfaces only continue to crumble every time Americans face a choice between convenience and anonymity. When we install software we encounter this dilemma known as the privacy paradox. Most people are not inclined to read the fine print when we install new software applications on their electronic devices (computers, cell phones, and tablets); it is a bunch of legalese mumbo-jumbo acting as a temporary barrier to the products and services you desire to use. This inconvenient bulwark is penetrated by agreeing to all the terms and services detailed in the previous fifteen paragraphs. Few, if any, consumers read nor understand what they have consented to. The Privacy Paradox is defined as :

“… the dichotomy of information privacy attitude and actual behavior has been coined the term privacy paradox(Brown, 2001; Norberg et al., 2007)”.

Essentially, most people profess to care about privacy but are willing to give it up in the short term to gain access to various digital products and services. The logic of this paradox seems oxymoronic until you realize that people lack patience and an extensive attention span. This contradiction validates the observations of Thomas Schelling’s theory of Egonomics. Individuals often grapple with the competition of present wants and future concerns when making decisions. When the details of the terms and conditions of using a product or service are articulated in opaque language and presented as bottom page afterthought, no wonder people are so readily agreeing to policies that may jeopardize their privacy. This dynamic only fertilizes the substrate for a Prisoner’s Dilemma. The firm producing the product or service acts in their self-interest by wording the terms and conditions in complex language, virtually impermeable to lay readers. If users understood what they agreed to, they would be less apt to use these products. Concurrently, these customers believe they are acting in their self-interest by choosing not to read the terms and conditions page and simply consenting to these requirements.

Neither party (customer or service provider) creates an ideal climate for transparency. It is all too easy for the customer to witlessly use the product without knowing how the service provider is collecting, storing, or even selling their information to third-party companies. The severity of this information asymmetry intensifies when specific forms of data are subject to collection and surveillance by government agencies. As stated in United States v. Miller (1976) banking services carry no reasonable expectation of privacy. The courts could apply this similar logic to data collected by other varieties of service providers, especially when presented under the guise of exigent circumstances. Essentially this contraction exists due to the laziness of consumers and the perverse incentives of service providers.