The Sensitivities of User Profile Information in Music Recommender Systems

Personalized services can cause privacy concerns, due to the acquisition, storage and application of sensitive personal information. This paper describes empirical research into the factors influencing the trade-off between the perceived benefits of personalization and the privacy `costs' experienced by individuals. The experiment in question concerns a music recommender system accessed over the Internet. Recommendations are based on two different types of information about their user: music preferences and personality. Users are offered several levels of disclosure for this information. Results show similar disclosure behavior by the users for the two types of personal information. This contradicts attitudes of users as they were reported in a questionnaire and post-experiment interview. Factors that influence people's disclosure behavior are the amount and clarity of information regarding the purpose of the information disclosure and regarding who gets access to the informa...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: PST
• Authors: Evelien van de Garde-Perik, Boris E. R. de Ruyter, Panos Markopoulos, Berry Eggen
• Keywords: Disclosure Behavior, Personal Information, PST 2004, PST 2008, Sensitive Personal Information