Solid Data Vaults vs Cookies: The Effects on Users' Perceived Transparency, Control, Security and Trust

Due to scandals such as Cambridge Analytica, people have been confronted with the dangers of how personal data is being handled online nowadays. To address this problem, sir Tim Berners Lee (known as the inventor of the world wide web) introduced a new web specification called Solid. Solid allows people to securely store their data in decentralized data Pods (Personal Online Data Stores or data vaults). Any type of data can be stored in a Pod and the user controls what data is being shared with whom. Data in a Pod is saved in interoperable data formats and thus can be used across different applications. In this way, Solid decouples personal data storage from applications.
In this experiment, a Solid Pod is used to store users’ reading behaviour on a VRTNWS demo website. Based on the data that is stored in their personal data vaults, users are offered personalized news recommendations. We aim to measure the effects of the use of Solid data vaults on the users’ perceived transparency, control, security and trust compared to the use of cookies to process personal data.