Due to the profound integration of information systems, e. g. by smartphones and tablets, into the private and professional daily routines, information privacy of users is a highly relevant topic for research and practice. Even though personal data represents an important economic value in the digital age, the disclosure of personal information is often incidental and unconscious. The decision-making for an app in mobile ecosystems is often connected with the disclosure of personal information. Such decision-making situations underlie uncertainties, ambiguities and asymmetric information to a high degree—nevertheless users are obtaining vast numbers of mobile applications and digital services. This seemingly paradoxically behavior is according to research in social psychology and behavioral economics due to the facts that decision-making is dominated by low cognitive effort and can be manipulated by extraneous influences. Such effects have been investigated within the scope of an experiment series using different stimuli. The results support the view that users in digital systems make their decisions regarding the disclosure of personal information with low cognitive effort. Those findings have implications for app developers, consumer protection as well as further research activities in the field of data disclosure and data protection.
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