Ce mardi au GAEL : Clara Jean, Professeur assistant, Grenoble Ecole de Management

Estimating the Value of Personal Data on Data Exchange Networks

Mardi 3 mars 2026, Clara Jean, Professeur assistant d'économie à GEM Alpine Business School

Résumé : This paper investigates whether the voluntary disclosure of personal data by individuals online affects the tracking likelihood of a website. We use data from a field experiment conducted on a thousand websites, in which personal data is disclosed through subscription to a website's newsletter, and website tracking behavior is observed through tracking pixels embedded in emails received after subscription. We show that while personal data disclosure increases overall the likelihood of being tracked, third-party trackers drive much of this effect. We observe that although some websites are able to adapt to heterogeneous privacy preferences and demonstrate low reliance on third-party trackers, these are generally established websites, which poses challenges for policymakers in balancing user privacy protection with concerns about market concentration.