Collecting and selling consumer information: Selling mechanisms matter

This article analyzes how take-it-or-leave-it offers (TIOLI) and auctions impact the selling strategy of a data intermediary, the price of information and the amount of consumer data collected. TIOLI leads to a higher consumer surplus compared to auctions, but encourages the intermediary to collect more consumer information than auctions, which is detrimental to consumer privacy. We discuss regulatory measures to protect at the same time consumer surplus and privacy.