Who Are You? The Trade-Off between Information Utility and Privacy

There's no doubt that personal information can be valuable to companies. People are willing to give up information about themselves not because they're stupid or because they're being tricked by evil corporations, but because it can sometimes be in their best interests to do so. From this perspective, the important questions are how users can provide or limit access to that information, what benefits they might receive in exchange for a bit of information, and how they perceive the value of those benefits.