A Literature Review of Personalization Transparency and Control: Introducing the Transparency–Awareness–Control Framework

[摘要] Through various online activities, individuals produce large amounts of data that are collected by companies for the pur‐pose of providing users with personalized communication. In the light of this mass collection of personal data, the trans‐parency and control paradigm for personalized communication has led to increased attention from legislators and aca‐demics. However, in the scientific literature no clear definition of personalization transparency and control exists, whichcould lead to reliability and validity issues, impeding knowledge accumulation in academic research. In a literature review,we analyzed 31 articles and observed that: 1) no clear definitions of personalization transparency or control exist; 2) theyare used interchangeably in the literature; 3) collection, processing, and sharing of data are the three objects of trans‐parency and control; and 4) increased transparency does not automatically increase control because first awareness needsto be raised in the individual. Also, the relationship between awareness and control depends on the ability and the desireto control. This study contributes to the field of algorithmic communication by creating a common understanding of thetransparency and control paradigm and thus improves validity of the results. Further, it progresses research on the issueby synthesizing existing studies on the topic, presenting the transparency–awareness–control framework, and formulatingpropositions to guide future research.

[学科分类] 医学（综合）

[关键词] awareness;computational advertising;consumer data;control;covert data collection;information disclosure;personalization;privacy;targeting;transparency