Data, Trust, and Transparency in Personalized Advertising by Darren M. Stevenson A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Communication) in the University of Michigan 2016 Doctoral Committee: Professor Christian E. Sandvig, Chair Associate Professor Sonya Dal Cin Professor Nicole B. Ellison Professor Shane M. Greenstein, Harvard Business School © Copyright Darren M. Stevenson, 2016 All Rights Reserved For my father who sacrificed much so that I might have opportunities he did not who always encouraged me to do my best ii Acknowledgements I was extremely privileged to pursue doctoral studies. I was also quite fortunate that my particular experience included working alongside so many remarkable people across several stimulating departments and institutions. At each point along the way I received generous intellectual, professional, social, and financial support. As a result, I am indebted to a great number of individuals, academic departments, and organizations willing to support me in various ways during this time. Attempting to recall and thank all those who substantively contributed to my doctoral education and the research reported in this document underscores the collective effort it is to complete a Ph.D., rather than an individualistic endeavor. Additionally, while this dissertation builds directly on the theories, ideas, and in many cases the precise suggestions of numerous colleagues, any errors herein are my own. First and foremost, I am immensely grateful to Christian Sandvig, my Ph.D. supervisor. Christian guided my doctoral studies and this entire research project. Unbeknownst to us at the onset, these efforts would span multiple universities. Still, Christian stuck with me and with the project from beginning to end. I am thankful for his unwavering support over the past few years. Christian essentially introduced me to social science research and then led me to most of the specific ideas, literatures, and methods from which my own work would build upon. For years he routinely encountered my ideas and writing in their rawest form, moments when he would skillfully separate the wheat from the chaff. Often the chaff was quite dense. Yet, he engaged iii this onerous task with patience, reforming and elevating my work with rigor and sophistication. Christian offered me immense freedom in my research program. He tolerated my repeated mistakes. He allowed me to mature as a scholar at my own pace. For these reasons and many others, any successes in this work are largely to his credit, the result of Christian’s dedication as a scholar, mentor, and friend. Additionally, despite the unique intermediary role played by research-intensive universities in relation to people, government, private enterprise, and other organizations, that academic inquiry proceeds first in the interest of the public, above all other interests, is not a given. So it is my hope that Christian’s unfaltering commitment to this ideal, to pursuing research motivated by and conducted in the public’s interest, has permeated both my thinking and the pages of this work. I am also intellectually indebted to the other members of my superb dissertation committee: Sonya Dal Cin, Nicole Ellison, and Shane Greenstein. Each shaped my thinking, research, analysis, and writing in their own unique ways. Along with Christian, this eclectic group demonstrated a richness in thought possible when individuals divergent in expertise, training, and even intellectual commitments converge on a problem of mutual interest. Intermingling these diverse, and occasionally conflicting, viewpoints and advice gave rise to a project that was both more colorful and certainly more enjoyable to work on than what may have emerged under a more uniform team of mentors. I am grateful to these scholars for locating common ground in my research project, for their generous time over the past few years, and for their steadfast dedication to this work and to my broader graduate education. Individually, Sonya Dal Cin was an instrumental guide and considerate sounding board, always willing to offer an ear while keenly articulating my blind spots, the latter of which there iv were many. Sonya always encouraged me to keep an open mind. She gently pulled me back towards her own form of smart objectivity whenever I veered off various academic cliffs. Nicole Ellison provided incisive criticism, perhaps in a way only she can. Nicole offered meticulous feedback and added rigor precisely where I was lacking it. Her contributions not only enhanced this dissertation greatly but, more generally, improved how I came to think about social scientific inquiry and knowledge production itself. Shane Greenstein offered much-needed extramural guidance, doing so with an insider perspective given the subject matter at hand. Shane’s guidance and feedback helped to ground this work in reality. Shane challenged me to consider important questions, considerations I would have otherwise overlooked completely. He is also partially to blame for some of my optimism in regards to the topic under investigation here, which hopefully shows itself at different points in this work. In addition to my committee, I am grateful to a host of additional informal mentors and colleagues who generously provided input and guidance on this work. For some this involved giving regular feedback on my thinking, research, and writing throughout my doctoral studies. Others offered less regular but equally influential feedback at various points along the way. Attempting to enumerate each of these individuals guarantees only that some will be omitted, and a big "Thank you, too!" to those I have unintentionally forgotten. Nevertheless, I wish to thank the following people for their generous time, feedback, and support on various parts of this dissertation project: Alessandro Acquisti, Elaine Adolfo, Van Anderson, Mark Andrejevic, Melissa Aronczyk, Michelle Ash, Cheol Gi Bae, Solon Barocas, James Barrett, Rajeev Batra, Joe Bayer, Catherine Blake, André Brock, Geoff Bowker, Matt Burton, Ergin Bulut, Ryan Calo, Chris Cascio, Jonathan Cave, Melissa Chalmers, Ajaay Chandrasekaran, Cliff Christians, Matt v Crain, Mathias Crawford, Leif Dahlberg, Norm Denzin, Mark Deuze, Steven Doran, Susan Douglas, Nora Draper, Allison Earl, Amy Eaton, Fernando Elichirigoity, Lorenz Engell, Fredrik Enoksson, Sarah Erickson, Ted Faust, Joe Ferrar, Christian Fuchs, Thomas Gambill, Martha Garcia-Murillo, Kelly Gates, Roland Gau, Adam Gerard, Lauren Guggenheim, Kristen Guth, Kevin Hamilton, David Hauser, Nicky Hentrich, James Hay, Bryce Henson, Muzammil Hussain, Annemarie Iddins, Jennifer Ihm, Matt Jackson, Mo Jang, Krishna Jayakar, Joy Yang Jiao, Leslie John, Steve Jones, Karrie Karahalios, Dam Hee Kim, Art Kramer, Ozan Kuru, Nojin Kwak, Tom Levin, Nina Li, Tim Libert, Mike Lorenc, Amanda Lotz, Shantel Martinez, Bob McChesney, Robin Means Coleman, Robert Mejia, Jessica Moorman, Yioryos Nardis, Annemarie Navar-Gill, John Nerone, Russ Neuman, Helen Nissenbaum, Jonathan Obar, J.P. Obley, Didem Ozkul, Karla Palma, Josh Pasek, Ben Pearson, Jean-Christophe Plantin, Alison Powell, Aswin Punathambekar, Charles Ransom, Julia Raz, Colin Rhinesmith, Aimee Rickman, Scott Robinson, John Rogers, Travis Ross, Anita Say Chan, Paddy Scannell, Amit Schejter, Barbara van Schewick, Doc Searls, Scott Selberg, Ashkan Soltani, Stuart Soroka, Paula Treichler, Joe Turow, Ellen Wagner, Daniel Weber, Christo Wilson, Siva Vaidhyanathan, Derek Vaillant, Anghy Valdivia, Dora Valkanova, Yue Wang, ShinJoung Yeo, and Rebecca Yu, along with others who aided this work but whom I am regretfully and unintentionally forgetting. I have also benefited from the support of numerous academic departments and organizations during the past few years. Most notably, these were the Department of Communication Studies, Institute of Social Research (ISR), Media Psychology Laboratory, and Horace Rackham School of Graduate Studies all at the University of Michigan; Center for Internet & Society (CIS) at Stanford Law School; School of Computer Science & Communication at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) Stockholm; Institute of vi Communications Research (ICR), College of Media, Center for People & Infrastructures, and Beckman Institute for Advanced Science & Technology all at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine; International Research Institute for Cultural Technologies & Media Philosophy (IKKM) at Bauhaus-Universität, Weimar; Social Science Research Council’s (SSRC) Study Group on Communications and Public Policy; Télécom Ecole de Management at the Institut Mines-Télécom, Paris; Italian Society for Social Studies of Science and Technology; Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research & Higher Education (STINT); Open Technology Institute at the New America Foundation; Searle Center on Law, Regulation, & Economic Growth at Northwestern University's Pritzker School of Law. These institutions, departments, and groups provided collegial environments for learning and in many cases generous financial support towards my research and scholarship. Studying in various departments and organizations also allowed me to engage with a multitude of thoughtful classmates and colleagues, benefitting from these relationships both at work and at play. Often there was too much of the former and too little of the latter, though I am thankful balance managed