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Category: Project

Description: The use of privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) to protect online privacy is a promising preventive measure. However, many users lack knowledge of their existence and application. This study reports the results of a pre-registered longitudinal experiment aimed at encouraging Internet users to install and use Tor, which enables anonymous browsing. The study compares two soft-paternalistic interventions: a social norm nudge and an educational boost, each with positive and negative framing. The data (NT1 = 1,450; NT2 = 1,171) were based on a sample representative of German online users. The study finds that targeting users’ literacy and framing Tor as a PET, rather than as a darknet technology, increases users’ motivation to install and use the browser. However, the effects are only observed in the short-term and do not translate into actual behavior. We discuss implications for theory and practice regarding the effectiveness of interventions encouraging PET adoption.