The privacy trade-off for mobile app downloads: The roles of app value, intrusiveness, and privacy concerns

Today, mobile app users regularly “pay” for various mobile services, such as social networking or entertainment apps, by accepting app permission requests, thereby sharing personal data with apps. Privacy calculus theory has established that individuals disclose personal information based on a cost-benefit trade-off. In the mobile app context, however, this notion needs more support, because existing studies have only measured costs and benefits or forced a trade-off. Conducting two online experiments among Western European app users (N₁ = 183; N₂ = 687), this study replicates earlier findings and provides more-profound insights into the boundary conditions of the privacy calculus by showing that app value (i.e., benefits) trumps the costs (i.e., intrusiveness, privacy concerns) in the privacy trade-off.