During Covid-19 cybercrime has risen significantly as criminals have sought to take advantage of the general chaos and disruption to our way of life. Recent research from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) explores how the structure of online forms can manipulate the amount of private information we divulge.
“The objective was to demonstrate that we are able to cause smartphone and PC users of online services to disclose more information by measuring the likelihood that they sign-up for a service simply by manipulating the way information items (name, address, email) were presented,” the researchers explain.
Foot in the door
The researchers highlight that various techniques can be used to get a digital “foot in the door”. These include requesting personal information from less important to begin with, up to more private as users get into the flow of things. This approach allows websites to elicit far more of our private information than we would ordinarily divulge.
Similarly, another approach that produces similar outcomes is to place each request on separate webpages, while spreading out information requests over a number of pages is also more effective at eliciting information than putting a giant form on a single page.
The findings emerged after an examination of the activities of over 2,500 users of the Israeli online bank Rewire. Each of the users was asked to provide a range of information as part of the sign-up process, including their name, country, and email address.
“We found that both manipulations independently increased the likelihood of sign-up and conversion,” the researchers say. “The ascending privacy intrusion manipulation increased sign-up by 35% and the multiple-page manipulation increased sign-up by 55%.”
“The general public and regulators should be made aware of these vulnerabilities since it is so easy to capture more private information, despite their privacy concerns,” they continue. “At the same time, this research has important marketing implications as legitimate companies and marketers are always seeking to maximize the amount of data they can capture on individuals and the optimal way to achieve this.”
