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Agreeing in Ignorance: Mapping the Routinisation of Consent in ICT-Services

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Abstract

Many ICT services require that users explicitly consent to conditions of use and policies for the protection of personal information. This consent may become ‘routinised’. We define the concept of routinisation and investigate to what extent routinisation occurs as well as the factors influencing routinisation in a survey study of internet use. We show that routinisation is common and that it is influenced by factors including gender, age, educational level and average daily internet use. We further explore the reasons users provide for not reading conditions and policies and show that they can be grouped in meaningful ways that may delineate different types of routinsation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Communication, Centre for Applied Ethics and Philosophy of Science, Aalborg University Copenhagen, A. C. Meyers Vænge 15, 2450, Copenhagen SV, Denmark

    Thomas Ploug

  2. Centre for Social Ethics and Policy, School of Law, University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK

    Søren Holm

  3. Faculty of Medicine, Center for Medical Ethics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Søren Holm

  4. Centre for Applied Ethics, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

    Søren Holm

Authors
  1. Thomas Ploug
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  2. Søren Holm
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Correspondence to Thomas Ploug.

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Ploug, T., Holm, S. Agreeing in Ignorance: Mapping the Routinisation of Consent in ICT-Services. Sci Eng Ethics 20, 1097–1110 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-013-9492-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-013-9492-x

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