Rather than assuming the types of advertisements users want to see on social media platforms, companies can benefit from giving consumers more options. 

A new study by University of Michigan School of Information doctoral candidate Jane Im shows that users would prefer to have more control over the types of advertisements they’re exposed to. 

Im’s paper, “Less is Not More: Improving Findability and Actionability of Privacy Controls for Online Behavioral Advertising” was published in CHI ‘23: Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 

An article by the Wall Street Journal highlights Im’s research and its future implications on advertising decisions for users. 

“The important thing is for companies to understand which options to surface for different kinds of users,” Im says. “Platforms could potentially design a feature that asks users what kind of ad-related needs they have, and then populate the ad menu and feed dashboard interfaces with the desired options, for each group of users.”

“Asking users for their ad preferences instead of just passively assuming their interests based on behavioral data is a win-win for both companies and users,” she adds. “Consumers can tell companies what they want to see, and companies can get more-accurate insights.”

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Read “How to Make It Easier for Consumers to Control the Ads They See Online” in The Wall Street Journal. 

Read Im’s paper, “Less is Not More: Improving Findability and Actionability of Privacy Controls for Online Behavioral Advertising.” The paper is published with collaborators Ruiyi Wang, Weikun Lyu, Nick Cook, Hana Habib, Lorrie Faith Cranor, Nikola Banovic and UMSI associate professor Florian Schaub. 

Read more about UMSI’s PhD in Information program and apply today!