Research & Science

Sharing data does not mean privacy stopped mattering

A person may share data while still caring about privacy. Cofone’s online field-experiment preprint looks at choices made when future data use is unclear. The public abstract gives no sample size or effect size. It does not test AI shopping tools.

Beyond Prompting
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What the source reports

The usual “privacy paradox” says people claim to care about privacy yet still share data. Cofone’s preprint challenges that label. Its online field experiment looks at choices made when people cannot see all the future uses and risks of their data. Sharing under those conditions need not mean someone is indifferent to privacy. The abstract does not state a sample size or the size of an effect, so this short report cannot put a number on the finding. The Beyond Prompting digest suggests a careful response: ask what a person does not know about future use, and keep a route to revisit the choice. That is the curator’s application. This paper did not test a tool that acts for people or a school policy.

Original source

Title
The Privacy Paradox Is a Misnomer: Data Under Structural Uncertainty
Author
Ignacio Cofone
Publication
arXiv
Date
Thursday, October 22, 2026