skip to main content
10.1145/2470654.2481368acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PageschiConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article

Why do people seek anonymity on the internet?: informing policy and design

Published: 27 April 2013 Publication History

Abstract

In this research we set out to discover why and how people seek anonymity in their online interactions. Our goal is to inform policy and the design of future Internet architecture and applications. We interviewed 44 people from America, Asia, Europe, and Africa who had sought anonymity and asked them about their experiences. A key finding of our research is the very large variation in interviewees' past experiences and life situations leading them to seek anonymity, and how they tried to achieve it. Our results suggest implications for the design of online communities, challenges for policy, and ways to improve anonymity tools and educate users about the different routes and threats to anonymity on the Internet.

References

[1]
Ackerman, M. S., Cranor, L. F., and Reagle, J. Privacy in e-commerce: examining user scenarios and privacy preferences. Proc. of the 1st ACM conference on Electronic commerce, (1999), 1--8.
[2]
Albrechtsen, E. A qualitative study of users' view on information security. Computers & Security 26, 4 (2007), 276--289.
[3]
Bargh, J. A., McKenna, K. Y. A., and Fitzsimons, G. M. Can You See the Real Me? Activation and Expression of the "True Self" on the Internet. Journal of social issues 58, 1 (2002), 33--48.
[4]
Berendt, B. Privacy in e-commerce: Stated preferences vs. actual behavior. Communications of the ACM 48, 4 (2005), 101--106.
[5]
Bernstein, M. S., Monroy-Hernández, A., Harry, D., André, P., Panovich, K., and Vargas, G. 4chan and/b: An Analysis of Anonymity and Ephemerality in a Large Online Community. Proc. of ICWSM 2011, AAAI Press (2011), 50--57.
[6]
Chen, K. and Rea, A. Protecting personal information online: A survey of user privacy concerns and control techniques. Journal of Computer Information Systems 44, 4 (2004), 85--92.
[7]
Christopherson, K. M. The positive and negative implications of anonymity in Internet social interactions. Computers in Human Behavior 23, 6(2007), 3038--3056.
[8]
Coleman, E. G. and Golub, A. Hacker practice. Anthropological Theory 8, 3 (2008), 255--277.
[9]
Conti, G. and Sobiesk, E. An honest man has nothing to fear: user perceptions on web-based information disclosure. SOUPS, (2007), 112--121.
[10]
Corbin, J. M. and Strauss, A. L. Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory. Sage Publications, Inc, 2008.
[11]
Edmonson, A. C., and McManus, S. E. Methodological fit in management field research. Academy of Management, 32, (2007), 1155--1179.
[12]
Greenberger, D. B., Miceli, M. P., and Cohen, D. J. Oppositionists and group norms: The reciprocal influence of whistle-blowers and co-workers. Journal of Business Ethics 6, 7 (1987), 527--542.
[13]
Hernan, S., Lambert, S., Ostwald, T., and Shostack, A. Uncover Security Design Flaws Using The STRIDE Approach. http://msdn.microsoft.com/enus/magazine/cc163519.aspx.
[14]
Hofstede, G. Dimensions of national cultures in fifty countries and three regions. In J. Deregowski, S. Dzuirawiec and R. Annis, eds., Explications in Cross Cultural Psychology. 1983.
[15]
Jensen, C. and Potts, C. Privacy practices of Internet users: self-reports versus observed behavior. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 63, 1 (2005), 203--227.
[16]
Kraut, R. E. and Resnick, P. Building Successful Online Communities: Evidence-Based Social Design. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 2011.
[17]
Krishnamurthy, B. and Wills, C. E. Characterizing privacy in online social networks. Proc. of the first workshop on Online social networks, (2008), 37--42.
[18]
Marx, G. T. What's in a Name? Some Reflections on the Sociology of Anonymity. The Information Society 15, 2 (1999), 99--112.
[19]
Mazurek, M. L., Arsenault, J. P., Bresee, J., et al. Access Control for Home Data Sharing: Attitudes, Needs and Practices. Proc. of CHI 2010, ACM (2010), 645--654.
[20]
McKenna, K. Y. A. and Bargh, J. A. Plan 9 From Cyberspace: The Implications of the Internet for Personality and Social Psychology. Personality and Social Psychology Review 4, 1 (2000), 57--75.
[21]
Odom, W., Sellen, A., Harper, R., and Thereska, E. Lost in translation: understanding the possession of digital things in the cloud. Proc. of CHI 2012, ACM (2012), 781--790.
[22]
Patton, M. Q. Qualitative research and evaluation methods. Sage Publications, Inc, 2002.
[23]
Pew Internet Project. Reputation management and social media: Our digital footprints. 2010. http://www.pewinternet.org/Infographics/2010/Reputation-Management.aspx.
[24]
Pfitzmann, A. and Köhntopp, M. Anonymity, Unobservability, and Pseudonymity - A Proposal for Terminology. Designing privacy enhancing technologies, (2001), 1--9.
[25]
Poole, E. S., Chetty, M., Grinter, R. E., and Edwards, W. K. More than meets the eye: transforming the user experience of home network management. Proc. DIS 2008, ACM Press (2008), 455--464.
[26]
Preece, J., Nonnecke, B., and Andrews, D. The top five reasons for lurking: improving community experiences for everyone. Computers in Human Behavior 20, 2 (2004), 201--223.
[27]
Señor, I. C., Fernández-Alemán, J. L., and Toval, A. Are Personal Health Records Safe? A Review of Free Web-Accessible Personal Health Record Privacy Policies. Journal of Medical Internet Research 14, 4 (2012), e114.
[28]
Shklovski, I. and Kotamraju, N. Online contribution practices in countries that engage in internet blocking and censorship. Proc. of CHI 2011, ACM (2011), 1109--1118.
[29]
Stuart, H. C., Dabbish, L., Kiesler, S., Kinnaird, P., and Kang, R. Social transparency in networked information exchange: a theoretical framework. Proc. of CSCW 2012, ACM (2012), 451--460.
[30]
Suler, J. The online disinhibition effect. Cyberpsychology & behavior, 3 (2004), 321--326.
[31]
Teich, A., Frankel, M. S., Kling, R., and Lee, Y. Anonymous communication policies for the Internet: Results and recommendations of the AAAS conference. The Information Society 15, 2 (1999), 71--77.
[32]
Tufekci, Z. Can You See Me Now? Audience and Disclosure Regulation in Online Social Network Sites. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 28, 1 (2007), 20--36.
[33]
Turner, E. and Dasgupta, S. Privacy on the Web: An examination of user concerns, technology, and implications for business organizations and individuals. Information Systems Management, (2003), 8--19.
[34]
Westin, A. and Harris Louis & Associates. HarrisEquifax Consumer Privacy Survey Technical Report. 1991.
[35]
Wang, F. Y., Zeng, D., et al. A study of the human flesh search engine: crowd-powered expansion of online knowledge. Computer 43, 8 (2010), 45--53.
[36]
Wang, Y., Norice, G., and Cranor, L. Who Is Concerned about What? A Study of American, Chinese and Indian Users' Privacy Concerns on Social Network Sites. Trust and Trustworthy Computing, (2011), 146--153.
[37]
Yurchisin, J., Watchravesringkan, K., and Mccabe, D. B. An Exploration of Identity Re-creation in the Context of Internet Dating. Social Behavior and Personality: an international journal 33, 8 (2005), 735--750.
[38]
Zhang, X. What do consumers really know about spyware? Communications of the ACM 48, 8 (2005), 44--48.

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Emotional roles of modern media cultureЧеловек и культура10.25136/2409-8744.2024.4.43793(124-131)Online publication date: Apr-2024
  • (2024)The Pursuit of Approval: Social Media Users’ Decreased Posting Latency Following Online Exclusion as a Form of Acknowledgment-Seeking BehaviorPersonality and Social Psychology Bulletin10.1177/01461672241297824Online publication date: 22-Nov-2024
  • (2024)Exploring how People with Spinal Cord Injuries Seek Support on Social MediaProceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3663548.3675628(1-17)Online publication date: 27-Oct-2024
  • Show More Cited By

Index Terms

  1. Why do people seek anonymity on the internet?: informing policy and design

      Recommendations

      Comments

      Information & Contributors

      Information

      Published In

      cover image ACM Conferences
      CHI '13: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
      April 2013
      3550 pages
      ISBN:9781450318990
      DOI:10.1145/2470654
      Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

      Sponsors

      Publisher

      Association for Computing Machinery

      New York, NY, United States

      Publication History

      Published: 27 April 2013

      Permissions

      Request permissions for this article.

      Check for updates

      Author Tags

      1. anonymity
      2. information disclosure
      3. online community
      4. privacy

      Qualifiers

      • Research-article

      Conference

      CHI '13
      Sponsor:

      Acceptance Rates

      CHI '13 Paper Acceptance Rate 392 of 1,963 submissions, 20%;
      Overall Acceptance Rate 6,199 of 26,314 submissions, 24%

      Upcoming Conference

      CHI 2025
      ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
      April 26 - May 1, 2025
      Yokohama , Japan

      Contributors

      Other Metrics

      Bibliometrics & Citations

      Bibliometrics

      Article Metrics

      • Downloads (Last 12 months)439
      • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)22
      Reflects downloads up to 27 Jan 2025

      Other Metrics

      Citations

      Cited By

      View all
      • (2024)Emotional roles of modern media cultureЧеловек и культура10.25136/2409-8744.2024.4.43793(124-131)Online publication date: Apr-2024
      • (2024)The Pursuit of Approval: Social Media Users’ Decreased Posting Latency Following Online Exclusion as a Form of Acknowledgment-Seeking BehaviorPersonality and Social Psychology Bulletin10.1177/01461672241297824Online publication date: 22-Nov-2024
      • (2024)Exploring how People with Spinal Cord Injuries Seek Support on Social MediaProceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3663548.3675628(1-17)Online publication date: 27-Oct-2024
      • (2024)Toward Building Design Empathy for People with Disabilities Using Social Media Data: A New Approach for Novice DesignersProceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3643834.3660687(3145-3160)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
      • (2024)Understanding and Balancing Trade-offs of Visibility in Support RequestsExtended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3650978(1-8)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
      • (2024)Halfway : Towards a Warmer NeighborhoodExtended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3647980(1-5)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
      • (2024)Your Avatar Seems Hesitant to Share About Yourself: How People Perceive Others' Avatars in the Transparent SystemProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642568(1-14)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
      • (2024)Overview of Usable Privacy Research: Major Themes and Research DirectionsThe Curious Case of Usable Privacy10.1007/978-3-031-54158-2_3(43-102)Online publication date: 20-Mar-2024
      • (2023)Who posted #MeToo, why, and what happened: A mixed methods examinationFrontiers in Public Health10.3389/fpubh.2023.106016311Online publication date: 6-Mar-2023
      • (2023)An Overview of Chatbot-Based Mobile Mental Health Apps: Insights From App Description and User ReviewsJMIR mHealth and uHealth10.2196/4483811(e44838)Online publication date: 22-May-2023
      • Show More Cited By

      View Options

      Login options

      View options

      PDF

      View or Download as a PDF file.

      PDF

      eReader

      View online with eReader.

      eReader

      Figures

      Tables

      Media

      Share

      Share

      Share this Publication link

      Share on social media