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Privacy Perceptions and Behaviors of Google Personal Account Holders in Saudi Arabia

Eman Alashwali, Lorrie Faith Cranor

TL;DR

The paper addresses privacy perceptions and behaviors of Google account holders in a non-Western context by focusing on Activity Controls across Web & App Activity, Location History, and YouTube History. Using qualitative interviews with 30 Saudi participants, it reveals widespread but often vague awareness and limited actual use of controls, with many participants surprised by the data saved when viewing their activity. Participants generally accept data use to improve services but oppose ad-based data uses, and many intend to tighten privacy settings in the future after being informed. The study highlights cross-cultural similarities with US findings, and urges improved privacy-setting onboarding, more usable privacy interfaces, and further research into privacy concerns in non-Western cultures, while noting policy and industry implications such as the need for transparency and potentially stricter default configurations.

Abstract

While privacy perceptions and behaviors have been investigated in Western societies, little is known about these issues in non-Western societies. To bridge this gap, we interviewed 30 Google personal account holders in Saudi Arabia about their privacy perceptions and behaviors regarding the activity data that Google saves about them. Our study focuses on Google's Activity Controls, which enable users to control whether, and how, Google saves their Web \& App Activity, Location History, and YouTube History. Our results show that although most participants have some level of awareness about Google's data practices and the Activity Controls, many have only vague awareness, and the majority have not used the available controls. When participants viewed their saved activity data, many were surprised by what had been saved. While many participants find Google's use of their data to improve the services provided to them acceptable, the majority find the use of their data for ad purposes unacceptable. We observe that our Saudi participants exhibit similar trends and patterns in privacy awareness, attitudes, preferences, concerns, and behaviors to what has been found in studies in the US. Our results emphasize the need for: 1) improved techniques to inform users about privacy settings during account sign-up, to remind users about their settings, and to raise awareness about privacy settings; 2) improved privacy setting interfaces to reduce the costs that deter many users from changing the settings; and 3) further research to explore privacy concerns in non-Western cultures.

Privacy Perceptions and Behaviors of Google Personal Account Holders in Saudi Arabia

TL;DR

The paper addresses privacy perceptions and behaviors of Google account holders in a non-Western context by focusing on Activity Controls across Web & App Activity, Location History, and YouTube History. Using qualitative interviews with 30 Saudi participants, it reveals widespread but often vague awareness and limited actual use of controls, with many participants surprised by the data saved when viewing their activity. Participants generally accept data use to improve services but oppose ad-based data uses, and many intend to tighten privacy settings in the future after being informed. The study highlights cross-cultural similarities with US findings, and urges improved privacy-setting onboarding, more usable privacy interfaces, and further research into privacy concerns in non-Western cultures, while noting policy and industry implications such as the need for transparency and potentially stricter default configurations.

Abstract

While privacy perceptions and behaviors have been investigated in Western societies, little is known about these issues in non-Western societies. To bridge this gap, we interviewed 30 Google personal account holders in Saudi Arabia about their privacy perceptions and behaviors regarding the activity data that Google saves about them. Our study focuses on Google's Activity Controls, which enable users to control whether, and how, Google saves their Web \& App Activity, Location History, and YouTube History. Our results show that although most participants have some level of awareness about Google's data practices and the Activity Controls, many have only vague awareness, and the majority have not used the available controls. When participants viewed their saved activity data, many were surprised by what had been saved. While many participants find Google's use of their data to improve the services provided to them acceptable, the majority find the use of their data for ad purposes unacceptable. We observe that our Saudi participants exhibit similar trends and patterns in privacy awareness, attitudes, preferences, concerns, and behaviors to what has been found in studies in the US. Our results emphasize the need for: 1) improved techniques to inform users about privacy settings during account sign-up, to remind users about their settings, and to raise awareness about privacy settings; 2) improved privacy setting interfaces to reduce the costs that deter many users from changing the settings; and 3) further research to explore privacy concerns in non-Western cultures.
Paper Structure (44 sections, 10 figures, 7 tables)

This paper contains 44 sections, 10 figures, 7 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Background and Related Work
  3. Google Account Sign-Up and the Activity Controls
  4. Privacy Perceptions and Behaviors Towards Privacy Settings and Data Practices
  5. Privacy Awareness and Behaviors.
  6. Privacy Preferences, Attitudes, and Concerns.
  7. Saudi Society and Privacy
  8. Methodology
  9. Recruitment
  10. Interview
  11. Data Analysis
  12. Limitations
  13. Results
  14. Participants
  15. Awareness of Google's Activity Controls
  16. ...and 29 more sections

Figures (10)

  • Figure 1: Google's "Privacy and Terms" page which appears during the sign-up process. Only if the "More options" link is clicked, users can change the hidden permissive default privacy settings.
  • Figure 2: Google's Activity Controls section.
  • Figure 3: The advanced settings of the Web & App Activity.
  • Figure 4: Participants' preferences regarding the acceptable use of their Web & App Activity data by Google.
  • Figure 5: Google's updated ad settings
  • ...and 5 more figures