A Study on User Preference: Influencing App Selection Decision with Privacy Indicator

This paper investigates how the use of privacy indicators in app stores can influence user behavior, and if the added information can improve consumer transparency. After a pre-study on the design and symbology, a visual privacy indicator was implemented and evaluated in an app market prototype. A total of 82 participants were asked to select a number of task-specific apps. By varying the degrees of participatory background information, we show that impact of a privacy indicator on app selection behavior has statistical significance and such privacy preserving behavior can be invoked by mere presence of the indicator.