Abstract
People are faced with a variety of incentives to divulge personally identifiable information (PII) as online
businesses aim to personalize consumer experiences. However, little is known about how people
perceive the worth of their PII in relation to the benefits they receive. This brings to question the true
worth of information specifically in terms of importance and value. Understanding how people perceive
the worth of the PII allows online businesses to establish strategies to enhance the experiences offered
to online consumers. In this study, we examine the question “what is the worth of PII?” by employing
a survey instrument measuring perceptions across different groups of socioeconomic indicators:
education, income, and age. Our findings suggest that the worth of PII is not equally perceived across
all groups. More specifically, we find education to be a larger contributor to the perceived differences in
information worth. We believe our findings can impact how researchers evaluate PII and how online
businesses evaluate PII worth to improve the consumer experience.