How Can We Increase Privacy Protection Behavior? A Longitudinal Experiment Testing Three Intervention Strategies

This study investigates which intervention strategies most effectively increase privacy protection behavior. Drawing upon Protection Motivation Theory, we examine the short- and long-term effects of (combinations) of three strategies: (1) increasing awareness of the threat to privacy, (2) training effective privacy protection behavior, and (3) addressing and combating privacy fatigue. We conducted a longitudinal experiment in the Netherlands with three waves (Nwave1 = 1,000, 2 weeks later Nwave2 = 799, 2 months later Nwave3 = 465) and eight between subjects conditions (no strategy and all possible combinations of the strategies). Results show that the training strategy increased self-efficacy and response efficacy, immediately increased all privacy protection behaviors, and positively impacted tracking blocking behavior in the short- and long-term, actual cookie rejection in the short-term (2 weeks later), and deletion behavior in the long-term (2 months later). The threat and fatigue strategies did not have their anticipated effects, but the threat strategy did immediately increase tracking blocking intentions, and the fatigue strategy had a positive, short-term effect on cookie rejection behavior.