Understanding Privacy Disclosure in the Online Market for Lemons: Insights and Requirements for Platform Providers

Abstract

Future used car markets may use personal data to reduce information asymmetries between car sellers and buyers, e. g. on past driving behavior. Reducing information asymmetries is attractive for used car platforms as they can move from pure information provision to orchestrating transactions. However, car sellers and buyers have to agree to sharing personal data. What kind of data is interesting for them? Under what circumstances are they willing to share this data? What should a platform do to support data sharing? We explore those research questions as part of the Cardossier project by conducting experiments with the Car-Market Game, simulating a future car market. The results indicate that there is no market for pure personal data (e. g. photographs of sellers), but there is a market for car usage data. From future used car platforms the participants expect disclosure control and disclosure transparency in an environment free of interpersonal trust.