Not all consent is equal: how design and cynicism shape users’ privacy decisions

Service providers collect users’ personal information not only to improve service quality but also to maximize their revenue. Recognizing the mounting privacy risks posed by such practices, regulations worldwide have been enacted to govern the collection and processing of personal data. Part of the regulatory requirement is to obtain users’ consent before collecting personal information, giving users more control over their data. However, the informed consent approach has been criticized for failing to adequately protect users’ privacy, particularly due to deceptive design and overly lengthy explanations. Drawing on the coping appraisal mechanism from the Protection Motivation Theory, this paper examines how different informed consent designs influence privacy protection behavior and the role of privacy cynicism in this context. Using an experimental design (N=302), we manipulate two independent variables (effort and control), resulting in four experimental conditions with different consent form designs (high x low). Our results reveal that informed consent forms do not have a universal effect on privacy protection behavior and that their impact varies with the level of effort and control they exert. In addition, privacy cynicism drives individuals to become less engaged in privacy protection behaviors.