Digital means data-driven and particularly valuable data are often about individuals. Mass-personalization allows consumers unique customer experiences but it comes at the potential cost of a loss of privacy. In our research we look at facets that make consumers particularly vulnerable and we ask what can be done to better protect consumers privacy. Our interest ranges from issues of privacy policy comprehension to the little known issue of interdependent privacy which highlights that we often give away the data of other people (e.g., when sharing our contacts with an app). Our research aims to promote greater awareness, recognition, and respect for privacy among all actors involved.

Korunovska, J., Kamleitner, B., & Spiekermann, S. (2020). The Challenges and Impact of Privacy Policy Comprehension. Communication & Computational Methods eJournal. https://ssrn.com/abstract=3604171 

Korunovska, J., Kamleitner, B., & Spiekermann, S. (2019). The Power and Pitfalls of Transparent Privacy Policies in Social Networking Service Platforms. ArXiv, abs/1911.09386. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1911.09386

Kamleitner, B., & Mitchell, V. (2019). Your data is my data: a framework for addressing interdependent privacy infringements. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 38(4), 433-450. https://doi.org/10.1177/0743915619858924

Kamleitner, B., Mitchell, V. W., Stephen, A. T., & Kolah, A. (2018). Your customers may be the weakest link in your data privacy defenses. MIT Sloan Management Review. https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/your-customers-may-be-the-weakest-link-in-your-data-privacy-defenses/

Kamleitner, B., Dickert, S., Falahrastegar, M., & Haddadi, H. (2013). Information Bazaar: a Contextual Evaluation. HotPlanet '13, 57 - 62. https://doi.org/10.1145/2491159.2491161

E-wallet, online shopping, digital identity, e-books, etc. There is a digital version of many things. But what now is a wallet? What does it mean to shop and what is an identity? Digitalization has blurred the boundaries of many concepts and we argue that it has made it harder for people to “grasp” what they are dealing with and to make it theirs. We even argue  digitalization paradoxically erodes and fuels the desire for psychological appropriation. Although digital promises offer graspability, they often fall short by providing superficial facades instead.

Kamleitner, B., & Kokkoris, M. D. (2022). How digitalization blurs boundaries, makes things ungraspable, and affects psychological appropriation. In The Routledge Handbook of Digital Consumption (pp. 35-46). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003317524-4

Digital technologies have the potential to make consumers’ lives more pleasant and support them in many meaningful ways. Thus, better understanding the benefits and downsides of technology use is highly relevant, for example, to aid development, innovation, and policy-making. However, capturing the influences of digital technology in the complex, dynamic lifeworlds of consumers in a methodologically robust manner remains challenging. For example, methods that are considered gold standard in other disciplines (e.g., randomized-controlled trials) may fall short in this context. Through our research, we aim to foster understanding and awareness for those challenges and explore alternative approaches to comprehend the role and impact of digital technologies in consumers’ everyday lives.

Bieg, T., Gerdenitsch, C., Schwaninger, I., Kern, B. M. J., & Frauenberger, C. (2022). Evaluating Active and Assisted Living technologies: Critical methodological reflections based on a longitudinal randomized controlled trial. Computers in Human Behavior, 133, 107249. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2022.107249

Kamleitner, B., & Kokkoris, M. (2020). Would You Sacrifice Your Privacy to Protect Public Health? Prosocial Responsibility in a Pandemic Paves the Way for Digital Surveillance (Brief Research Report). Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.578618

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