Data marketplaces can increase the willingness to share social media data at low prices

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Alizadeh, Meysam, Gilardi, Fabrizio
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Alizadeh, Meysam
Gilardi, Fabrizio
author_facet Alizadeh, Meysam
Gilardi, Fabrizio
contents Living in the Post API age, researchers face unprecedented challenges in obtaining social media data, while users are concerned about how big tech companies use their data. Data donation offers a promising alternative, however, its scalability is limited by low participation and high dropout rates. Research suggests that data marketplaces could be a solution, but its realization remains challenging due to theoretical gaps in treating data as an asset. This paper examines whether data marketplaces can increase individuals willingness to sell their X (Twitter) data package and the minimum price they would accept. It also explores how privacy protections and the type of data buyer may affect these decisions. Results from two preregistered online survey experiments show that a data marketplace increases participants' willingness to sell their X data by 12 to 25 percentage points compared to data donation (depending on treatments), and by 6.8 points compared to onetime purchase offers. Although difference in minimum acceptable prices are not statistically significant, over 64 percentage of participants set their price within the marketplace's suggested range (0.25 to 2), substantially lower than the amounts offered in prior onetime purchase studies. Finally, in the marketplace setting, neither the type of buyer nor the inclusion of a privacy safeguard significantly influenced participants willingness to sell.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_16618
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Data marketplaces can increase the willingness to share social media data at low prices
Alizadeh, Meysam
Gilardi, Fabrizio
Social and Information Networks
Computers and Society
Living in the Post API age, researchers face unprecedented challenges in obtaining social media data, while users are concerned about how big tech companies use their data. Data donation offers a promising alternative, however, its scalability is limited by low participation and high dropout rates. Research suggests that data marketplaces could be a solution, but its realization remains challenging due to theoretical gaps in treating data as an asset. This paper examines whether data marketplaces can increase individuals willingness to sell their X (Twitter) data package and the minimum price they would accept. It also explores how privacy protections and the type of data buyer may affect these decisions. Results from two preregistered online survey experiments show that a data marketplace increases participants' willingness to sell their X data by 12 to 25 percentage points compared to data donation (depending on treatments), and by 6.8 points compared to onetime purchase offers. Although difference in minimum acceptable prices are not statistically significant, over 64 percentage of participants set their price within the marketplace's suggested range (0.25 to 2), substantially lower than the amounts offered in prior onetime purchase studies. Finally, in the marketplace setting, neither the type of buyer nor the inclusion of a privacy safeguard significantly influenced participants willingness to sell.
title Data marketplaces can increase the willingness to share social media data at low prices
topic Social and Information Networks
Computers and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.16618