87 Percent of Consumers Surveyed Would Opt Out Of Having Their Personal Data Sold

The behavioral economics of personal information are becoming clearer. The overwhelming majority would prefer their data not be sold. But if they are offered compensation for that data, some would consider the offer.

This is no longer a purely theoretical exercise as Europe's GDPR regulations and California's new Consumer Privacy Act are going to force companies which have profited from free information (meaning almost no cost of goods sold and extraordinary margins) to actually calculate the relative benefits of less - or no - data versus paying for it... just like real businesses in the real world! JL


Ronan Shields reports in Ad Week:

The vast majority of consumers have concerns over how their data is used. 87% of panel participants in a recent poll (not all California residents) said they would opt out of having their personal information sold to third parties. An additional option to select—“Reward Me for My Personal Information”—and yielded a result whereby 61% opted for “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” with 21% selecting the newly available option. People are distrustful of the internet … and they want three things: information, control and rewards.”
The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) will come into force in January 2020 and as the media industry scrambles for solutions to bring more transparency to data brokerage, research shows marked consumer resistance to ad tech.

The wording of CCPA obliges websites to inform visitors of how their data is shared with third parties, such as buy- and sell-side platforms, plus offer them the option of opting out of having their data sold to such outfits.
The bill, which still has to be signed into law, requires publishers to provide a notice that informs California residents of their right to opt out of online ad targeting, specifically with multiple icons and links on their webpages that state “Do Not Sell My Personal Information.”
Ad industry trade bodies are already attempting to get to grips with the law, which will likely see the privacy setting of California’s 40 million residents become much more stringent according to research.
Statistics released today by BritePool and Annenberg Research show that the vast majority of consumers have concerns over how their data is used by those in the media industry, in particular those in the b-to-b sector. Albeit, the findings do present some caveats that suggest some consumers will be willing to let their guard down.
The most startling figure is that 87% of panel participants in a recent poll of 1,004 respondents (not all Californian residents) said they would opt out of having their personal information sold to third parties—8% said they would “just go on to the website” and 6% “didn’t know.”
This finding was recorded between Sept. 16 and 18, but a similar poll with an additional option for the respondents to choose from that was carried out the next week generated a noticeably different result.
The latter poll offered participants an additional option to select—“Reward Me for My Personal Information”—and yielded a result whereby 61% opted for “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” with 21% selecting the newly available option. Meanwhile, 7% said they would “just go on to the website” and 6% “didn’t know” how they would respond.
Speaking with Adweek, Bob Perkins, COO of BritePool, said, “We saw the number of people that said ‘do not sell my personal information’ decline by 30%, so when you give people two options [between ‘selling’ and ‘rewarding’] we see this big reduction.”
He added, “Our takeaway from the research is that people are distrustful of the internet … and they want three things: information, control and rewards.”