Data, Markets and Privacy

The Data, Markets and Privacy group applies economics and behavioral science to the investigation of individual, organizational, and societal trade-offs, as well as consumer decisions, associated with the protection and sharing of personal data. Alessandro Acquisti leads this Research Group.

Featured

The Economics of Privacy at a Crossroads

Oct, 2025

Alessandro Acquisti | T. Wilson (1953) Professor in Management and Professor of Information Technology, MIT Sloan

Research Papers Beyond Search: LLM Adoption and Web Traffic Concentration

Feb 2026

Alessandro Acquisti | T. Wilson (1953) Professor in Management and Professor of Information Technology, MIT Sloan

Samira Gholami | Stanford University – Department of Economics

Cristiana Firullo | Cornell University – Cornell University, College of Computing and Information Science (CIS), Department of Information Science, Students

Cristobal Cheyre | Cornell University, Ithaca, New York

This paper examines whether LLM adoption displaces traditional web navigation or instead restructures how users discover and consume information.

Research Papers Policy Impacts of Statistical Uncertainty and Privacy

Oct 2025

Alessandro Acquisti | T. Wilson (1953) Professor in Management and Professor of Information Technology, MIT Sloan

Ryan Steed
Terrance Liu
Zhiwei Steven Wu

This paper explores differential privacy, an increasingly popular tool for preserving individuals’ privacy by adding statistical uncertainty when sharing sensitive data.

Research Papers The Economics of Privacy at a Crossroads

Alessandro Acquisti | T. Wilson (1953) Professor in Management and Professor of Information Technology, MIT Sloan

This paper provides insights on privacy policies and regulations, the effects of those policies and potential future action to protect consumer data privacy.

Research Papers Does Privacy Regulation Harm Content Providers? A Longitudinal Analysis of the Impact of the GDPR

Jul 2025

Alessandro Acquisti | T. Wilson (1953) Professor in Management and Professor of Information Technology, MIT Sloan

Vincent Lefrere
Logan Warberg
Cristobal Cheyre
Veronica Marotta