Usable Privacy Choices Research
We are conducting research on ways to make privacy choices easier for consumers to find and exercise. See also our work with the Usable Privacy Policy Project.
News
- Feburary 14, 2022: The California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) filed its first substantive rulemaking package with California’s Office of Administrative Law (OAL) for review. This package includes a provision for using our icon as part of an "Alternative Opt-out Link" with the phrase "Your Privacy Choices" or "Your California Privacy Choices." Companies may use the alternative opt-out link and icon so that they can consolidate their mandatory California privacy information in one place instead of posting two separte links.
- Feburary 2022 - We're starting to see our icon all over the Internet, including at toyota.com, all the P&G brands, Spotify, chicos.com, and many more!
- On March 15, 2021 the California AG announced approval of additional regulations including the use of our "Privacy Options" icon
- On December 10, 2020 the California AG issued
a notice of fourth set of modifications of CCPA and recommended
adoption of the
blue stylized togle icon designed and tested by our group! You
can download the icon in several
sizes
- May 28, 2020: We conducted a study to evaluate four candidate CCPA icons at the request of the California AG
- March 11, 2020: The California AG's latest proposed CCPA regulations eliminate the opt-out button completely (see also the Cal AG's CCPA regulation website)
- February 24, 2020: We conducted a followup study to evaluate the California AG's proposed opt-out button and submitted a report, finding the AG's proposed button may mislead consumers
- February 4, 2020: We submitted a report to the California Attorney General's office based on our research with recommendations for a CCPA opt-out button
Read a short overview of our research informing the design for the California privacy icon
Research papers
Hana Habib, Yixin Zou, Yaxing Yao, Alessandro Acquisti, Lorrie Cranor, Joel Reidenberg, Norman Sadeh, and Florian Schaub. 2021. Toggles, Dollar Signs, and Triangles: How to (In)Effectively Convey Privacy Choices with Icons and Link Texts. In Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 63, 1–25.
Lorrie Faith Cranor, Hana Habib, Yaxing Yao, Yixin Zou, Alessandro Acquisti, Joel Reidenberg, Norman Sadeh, Florian Schaub. CCPA Opt-Out Icon Testing – Phase 2. Submitted to the California Office of the Attorney General, May 28, 2020.
Hana Habib, Sarah Pearman, Jiamin Wang, Yixin Zou, Alessandro Acquisti, Lorrie Faith Cranor, Norman Sadeh, and Florian Schaub. "It’s a scavenger hunt": Usability of Websites' Opt-Out and Data Deletion Choices. CHI 2020.
Lorrie Faith Cranor, Hana Habib, Yixin Zou, Alessandro Acquisti, Joel Reidenberg, Norman Sadeh, Florian Schaub. User Testing of the Proposed CCPA Do-Not-Sell Icon. Submitted to the California Office of the Attorney General, February 24, 2020.
Lorrie Faith Cranor, Hana Habib, Yixin Zou, Alessandro Acquisti, Joel Reidenberg, Norman Sadeh, Florian Schaub. Design and Evaluation of a Usable Icon and Tagline to Signal an Opt-Out of the Sale of Personal Information as Required by CCPA. Submitted to the California Office of the Attorney General, February 4, 2020.
Florian Schaub and Lorrie Faith Cranor. Usable and Useful Privacy Interfaces. In Travis D. Breaux, ed. An Introduction to Privacy for Technology Professionals. IAPP 2020. pp. 175-235.
Hana Habib, Yixin Zou, Aditi Jannu, Neha Sridhar, Chelse Swoopes, Alessandro Acquisti, Lorrie Faith Cranor, Norman Sadeh, and Florian Schaub. An Empirical Analysis of Data Deletion and Opt-Out Choices on 150 Websites. SOUPS 2019.
People:
- Lorrie Cranor, Director of CyLab Security and Privacy Institute, Bosch Distinguished Professor in Security and Privacy Technologies, FORE Systems Professor of Computer Science and of Engineering & Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University
- Hana Habib, PhD Candidate, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
- Yixin Zou, PhD Candidate, School of Information, University of Michigan
- Alessandro Acquisti, Professor of Information Technology & Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University
- Joel Reidenberg, Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and Professor of Law, Fordham University School of Law
- Norman Sadeh, Professor of Computer Science and Co-Director Privacy Engineering Program, Carnegie Mellon University
- Florian Schaub, Assistant Professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan