According to research conducted by Sociable Labs, 1.2 million consumers were monitored between March and November 2011 whilst being presented with 42 different Facebook applications.  From those monitored a staggering 56% of users gave permission to the applications to access personal data such as email, newsfeed, profile and personal information.

The study also revealed that the longer the list of permissions the less people opted to accept the privacy conditions.  Do people really read each individual element being requested for access or does the sight of a long list automatically put people off without even realizing that giving permission to two items of personal data isn’t really so different than giving access to seven items of personal data?

From a personal point of view, when accepting applications that request access to my personal data a long list of access requests does sometimes stand as a mental barrier to accepting an application.  However, when faced with a request for just one or two items in the list for accessibility, it is often not so daunting.  I then reason with myself that I can always delete the application from my settings page, even if Facebook seem to be regularly changing how you access this area.  It would be interesting to see official Facebook stats showing how many users delete applications after installing them.

The study also concluded that users were more likely to opt-in when there was a ‘benefit’ or ‘incentive’ to the user.  It would be interesting to know which of the 42 applications presented to the 1.2 million users, gave the consumer an added value or benefit such as a discount or an exclusive offer, and to see the percentage of opt-ins based just on those applications.  Human psychology dictates that the likelihood of disregarding a personal privacy request versus a real offer is much higher than giving access to personal data based on receiving nothing in return.  This is growing as the mindset of ‘social consumers’ are beginning to realize that they are presented with real discounts and not just being sold on ‘marketing speak’.

Another interesting takeout from the study, and quoted directly from the Sociable Labs posting is this “Sites where traffic is largely being driven via SEO and SEM efforts tended to have lower opt-in rates.”  This gives conclusive proof that the mindset of social consumers is of a social nature.  Being presented with 3^rd party offers by unknown entities in search, versus being introduced to the same offers by either known acquaintances or brands is largely outweighed by familiarity.  Consumers trust in familiarity which is now making paid search results such as Google Adwords lose their affectivity.

As we approach 2012 I believe that we will see the 56% opt-in rate increase dramatically for social commerce applications on Facebook requesting to access personal data.  But from the point of view of the retailer of the application developer, remember that real deals get real conversion.  By adding an image of the application accept screen of the deal, a brand would stand a higher chance of being given access to a consumer’s personal data.