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Explaining the Technology Use Behavior of Privacy-Enhancing Technologies: The Case of Tor and JonDonym

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Abstract and Figures

Today’s environment of data-driven business models relies heavily on collecting as much personal data as possible. Besides being protected by governmental regulation, internet users can also try to protect their privacy on an individual basis. One of the most famous ways to accomplish this, is to use privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs). However, the number of users is particularly important for the anonymity set of the service. The more users use the service, the more difficult it will be to trace an individual user. There is a lot of research determining the technical properties of PETs like Tor or JonDonym, but the use behavior of the users is rarely considered, although it is a decisive factor for the acceptance of a PET. Therefore, it is an important driver for increasing the user base. We undertake a first step towards understanding the use behavior of PETs employing a mixed-method approach. We conducted an online survey with 265 users of the anonymity services Tor and JonDonym (124 users of Tor and 141 users of JonDonym). We use the technology acceptance model as a theoretical starting point and extend it with the constructs perceived anonymity and trust in the service in order to take account for the specific nature of PETs. Our model explains almost half of the variance of the behavioral intention to use the two PETs. The results indicate that both newly added variables are highly relevant factors in the path model. We augment these insights with a qualitative analysis of answers to open questions about the users’ concerns, the circumstances under which they would pay money and choose a paid premium tariff (only for JonDonym), features they would like to have and why they would or would not recommend Tor/JonDonym. Thereby, we provide additional insights about the users’ attitudes and perceptions of the services and propose new use factors not covered by our model for future research.
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Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies ; 2020 (2):111–128
David Harborth*, Sebastian Pape, and Kai Rannenberg
Explaining the Technology Use Behavior of
Privacy-Enhancing Technologies:
The Case of Tor and JonDonym
Abstract: Today’s environment of data-driven business mod-
els relies heavily on collecting as much personal data as pos-
sible. Besides being protected by governmental regulation, in-
ternet users can also try to protect their privacy on an individ-
ual basis. One of the most famous ways to accomplish this, is
to use privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs). However, the
number of users is particularly important for the anonymity
set of the service. The more users use the service, the more
difficult it will be to trace an individual user. There is a lot of
research determining the technical properties of PETs like Tor
or JonDonym, but the use behavior of the users is rarely con-
sidered, although it is a decisive factor for the acceptance of
a PET. Therefore, it is an important driver for increasing the
user base.
We undertake a first step towards understanding the use be-
havior of PETs employing a mixed-method approach. We con-
ducted an online survey with 265 users of the anonymity ser-
vices Tor and JonDonym (124 users of Tor and 141 users of
JonDonym). We use the technology acceptance model as a
theoretical starting point and extend it with the constructs per-
ceived anonymity and trust in the service in order to take ac-
count for the specific nature of PETs. Our model explains al-
most half of the variance of the behavioral intention to use the
two PETs. The results indicate that both newly added variables
are highly relevant factors in the path model. We augment
these insights with a qualitative analysis of answers to open
questions about the users’ concerns, the circumstances under
which they would pay money and choose a paid premium tariff
(only for JonDonym), features they would like to have and why
they would or would not recommend Tor/JonDonym. Thereby,
we provide additional insights about the users’ attitudes and
perceptions of the services and propose new use factors not
covered by our model for future research.
Keywords: Privacy-Enhancing Technologies, Tor, JonDonym,
user study, technology acceptance
DOI 10.2478/popets-2020-0020
Received 2019-08-31; revised 2019-12-15; accepted 2019-12-16.
*Corresponding Author: David Harborth:
Goethe University Frank-
furt, Germany, E-mail: david.harborth@m-chair.de
1 Introduction
Perry Barlow [6] states: “The internet is the most liber-
ating tool for humanity ever invented, and also the best for
surveillance. It’s not one or the other. It’s both.” One of the
reasons for surveilling users is a rising economic interest in
the internet [7]. However, users who have privacy concerns
and feel a strong need to protect their privacy are not helpless,
they can make use of privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs).
PETs allow users to improve their privacy by eliminating or
minimizing personal data disclosure to prevent unnecessary
or unwanted processing of personal data [58]. Examples of
PETs include services which allow anonymous communica-
tion, such as Tor [56] or JonDonym [35].
There has been lots of research on Tor and JonDonym [43,
50], but the large majority of it is of technical nature and does
not consider the user. However, the number of users is crucial
for this kind of services. Besides the economic point of view
which suggests that more users allow a more cost-efficient way
to run those services, the quality of the offered service is de-
pending on the number of users since an increasing number of
(active) users also increases the anonymity set. The anonymity
set is the set of all possible subjects who might be related to
an action [46], thus a larger anonymity set may make it more
difficult for an attacker to identify the sender or receiver of
a message [2]. As a consequence, it’s crucial to learn about
the users’ intention to use a PET and investigate the factors
it depends on. Thus, our research is in line with related work
on the obstacles of using secure communication tools [1] with
the recommendation to “understand the target population” and
research suggesting zero-effort privacy [28, 32] by improving
the usability of the service.
In this paper, we investigate how the users’ perceived
anonymity and their trust in the service influence the intention
to use PETs. Privacy protection is usually not the primary goal
of the users, but only their secondary goal [17]. The user’s
Sebastian Pape:
Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany, E-mail:
sebastian.pape@m-chair.de
Kai Rannenberg:
Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany, E-mail:
kai.rannenberg@m-chair.de
Explaining the Technology Use Behavior of Privacy-Enhancing Technologies: The Case of Tor and JonDonym 112
aims become more indistinct if the PET is integrated in the
regular service (e.g. anonymous credentials [8]). In contrast to
PETs integrated in services, “standalone” PETs are not inte-
grated into a specific service and can be used for several pur-
poses. Thus, examining standalone PETs allows us to focus on
the usefulness of the PET with regard to privacy protection and
avoids interference with other goals of the user. Therefore, we
conducted a survey of the users of the (standalone) anonymity
services Tor and JonDonym. The similarities and differences
of the two considered PETs are sketched in the next section.
To determine the use factors of Tor and JonDonym, we ex-
tend the classical technology acceptance factors by Davis [18,
19] with relevant factors for the specific nature of PETs. We fo-
cus on perceived anonymity and trust because the perception
about anonymity is a key variable for users to decide whether
to use a such services or not. This perception is closely related
to the trust which users might have in services. For example,
there are vivid discussions with people claiming that Tor is
essentially a big honeypot controlled by the US government.
Opposing voices argue that anonymity is never achievable to
100% and that Tor is among the better solutions we have for
certain scenarios (e.g. see a recent discussion which developed
after a Twitter tweet by Edward Snowden on Tails [57]).
Since most users do not base their decisions on any kind of
formal (technical or mathematical) anonymity measurement,
we decided to measure the perceived anonymity. The resulting
research question is:
RQ1: Does perceived anonymity influence the behavioral in-
tention to use a PET?
However, perceived anonymity is a subjective perception
of each user. Since we assume, that most users will not dig into
mathematical proofs of the assured anonymity or challenge the
implementation of the service provider, we conclude that it is
important to also consider the trust in the service provider and
the service itself:
RQ2: Does trust in the PET influence the behavioral intention
to use it?
We further refine the two research questions and in par-
ticular the relation between perceived anonymity,trust in the
service (Tor/JonDonym), perceived usefulness,perceived ease
of use,behavioral intention and actual use behavior in Section
3. Consequently, the question arises whether the relationships
between the variables of the model differ for the two PETs.
We address this question by comparing the results based on a
multigroup analysis. To augment and generalize the findings,
we also asked users open questions about their concerns, their
willingness to donate to Tor or use JonDonym’s (paid) pre-
mium service, features they would like to have and why they
would or would not recommend Tor/JonDonym.
The remainder of the paper is structured as follows: Sec-
tion 2 briefly introduces the anonymization services Tor and
JonDonym, provides information on the technology accep-
tance model and lists related work on PETs and technology
acceptance. In Section 3, we present the research hypotheses,
describe the questionnaire and the data collection process. We
assess the quality of our quantitative empirical results with re-
gard to reliability and validity in Section 4. We present the
results for the research model for PETs and the multigroup
analysis to compare Tor and JonDonym in Section 5 and for
the qualitative analysis of the open questions in Section 6. In
Section 7, we discuss the implications of the results, elaborate
on limitations of our work and present possible future work.
Section 8 concludes the paper with a summary of the findings.
2 Theoretical Background
Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs) is an umbrella
term for different privacy protecting technologies. Borking and
Raab define PETs as a “coherent system of ICT measures that
protects privacy [.. . ] by eliminating or reducing personal data
or by preventing unnecessary and/or undesired processing of
personal data; all without losing the functionality of the data
system” [10, p.1].
PETs have a property that is not characteristic for many
other technology types. Privacy protection is usually not the
primary goal of the users, but only their secondary goal [17]. It
is important to understand that in many cases PET users make
use of the PET while they pursue another goal like brows-
ing the internet or using instant messengers. These aims be-
come more indistinct if the PET is integrated in the regular
service (e.g. anonymous credentials [8]). In contrast to PETs
integrated in services, standalone PETs (e.g. overlay networks
like Tor [56] or JonDonym [35]) are not integrated into a spe-
cific service and can be used for several purposes.
In this paper, we investigate the role of perceived
anonymity and trust in the context of a technology acceptance
model for the case of standalone PETs, namely the anonymity
services Tor and JonDonym.
2.1 Tor and JonDonym
Tor and JonDonym are low latency anonymity services
which redirect packets in a certain way in order to hide meta-
data (the sender’s and optionally – in case of a hidden service –
the receiver’s internet protocol (ip) address) from passive net-
work observers. In contrast to anonymity services with higher
latency such as anonymous remailers low latency anonymity
services can be used for interactive services such as messen-
Explaining the Technology Use Behavior of Privacy-Enhancing Technologies: The Case of Tor and JonDonym 113
gers. Due to network overheads this still leads to increased
latency which was evaluated by Fabian et al. [21] who found
associated usability issues when using Tor.
Technically, Tor – the onion router – is an overlay network
where the users’ traffic is encrypted and directed over several
different servers (relays). The Tor client gets a file with a list
of relays and follows a certain algorithm to select some relays
for a circuit. The aim of the algorithm is to avoid to have two
relays in one circuit which are run by the same entity. Selected
routes through the circuit should be difficult for an adversary
to observe. Consequently, unpredictable routes through the Tor
network are chosen. The relays where the traffic leaves the
Tor network are called “exit nodes” and for an external ser-
vice the traffic seems to originate from those. JonDonym is
based on user selectable mix cascades (a group of anonymiza-
tion proxies), with two or three mix servers in one cascade. For
mix networks route unpredictability is not important so within
one cascade always the same sequence of mix servers is used.
Thus, for an external service the traffic seems to originate from
the last mix server in the cascade. As a consequence, other
usability issues may arise when websites face some abusive
traffic from the anonymity services [53] and decide to restrict
access for users of the anonymity service. Restrictions range
from outright rejection to limiting the users’ access to a sub-
set of the service’s functionality or imposing hurdles such as
CAPTCHA-solving [36] and for the user it appears that the
website is not function properly.
Tor offers an adapted browser including the Tor client
for using the Tor network, the “Tor Browser”. Similarly, the
“JonDoBrowser“ includes the JonDo client for using the Jon-
Donym network.
Although the specific technical functioning differ, Jon-
Donym and Tor are highly comparable with respect to the
general technical structure and the use cases. However, the
entities who operate the PETs are different. Tor is operated
by a non-profit organization with thousands of voluntarily op-
erated servers (relays) over which the encrypted traffic is di-
rected. Tor is free to use with the option that users can donate
to the Tor project. The actual number of users is estimated with
approximately 2,000,000 daily users by the Tor Project [56].
However, a recent study using another measurement technique
found 8,000,000 daily users [42]. JonDonym is run by a com-
mercial company. The mix servers used to build different mix
cascades are operated by independent and non interrelated or-
ganizations or private individuals who all publish their identity.
The service is available for free with several limitations, like
the maximum download speed. In addition, there are different
premium rates without these limitations that differ with regard
to duration and included data volume. Thus, JonDonym offers
several different tariffs and is not based on donations. The ac-
tual number of users is not predictable since the service does
not keep track of this.
Thus, we assume that users’ perceptions are equal with
respect to technical characteristics, but may be different with
respect to trust in the services.
From a research perspective, there are some papers about
JonDonym, e.g. a user study on user characteristics of pri-
vacy services [55]. However, the majority of work is about Tor.
Most of the work is technical [50], e.g. on improvements such
as relieved network congestion, improved router selection, en-
hanced scalability or reduced communication/computational
cost of circuit construction [4]. Naturally, there is also lots of
work about the security and anonymity properties [33, 37] and
traffic correlation [34].
2.2 Research on Technology Acceptance
The field of technology adoption and use has been the
subject of a multitude of previous research, yielding several
competing concepts, theories, and models. Some of the most
prominent models will be briefly introduced in order to create
a common understanding for the following analysis and our
choice for using the technology acceptance model (TAM) as
the base model.
The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) provides the the-
oretical starting point of TAM. It falls back on empirical re-
search conducted by the social psychologists Fishbein and
Ajzen [22]. According to TRA, a person’s behaviour is deter-
mined by that person’s intention to perform this particular be-
haviour. The behavioural intention (BI), in turn, is influenced
by his or her subjective norms (SN) and attitude toward the
given behaviour (A). BI can also be viewed as a function of
certain beliefs. On the one hand, attitude is related to a per-
son’s beliefs about and evaluation of the consequences of the
behaviour. On the other hand, the subjective norms concerning
a given behaviour are affected by normative beliefs and norma-
tive pressure. Subjective norms refer to a person’s motivation
to comply with persons saying whether he or she should per-
form the behaviour or not. Feedback loops can arise at various
stages of the process, as the performance of a given behaviour
can have an impact on beliefs, which in turn influences BI and
hence the behaviour itself.
The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) by Ajzen [3] is
based on the TRA. The overall structural process remains un-
changed, i.e. BI is influenced by several components and in
turn influences the performance of a behaviour. Nevertheless,
it was created as an extension of the TRA integrating the addi-
tion of perceived behavioural control (PBC). In practical terms,
this denotation refers to a person’s perception regarding the
ease or difficulty of performing a given behaviour in a given
Explaining the Technology Use Behavior of Privacy-Enhancing Technologies: The Case of Tor and JonDonym 114
situation. Consequently, PBC is assumed to depend on the ex-
tent to which required resources and opportunities are avail-
able. PBC can have an impact on behaviour in two ways. First,
indirectly through its influence on BI and its relationship with
A and SN. Secondly, together with BI, PBC can be used di-
rectly for predicting behavioural achievement.
Based on the TRA and TPB, TAM was developed in 1985
by Davis [18]. The model specifically focuses on the user ac-
ceptance of information systems. Similar to TRA, TAM hy-
pothesizes that system use is determined by BI to use. How-
ever, it differs from the former model, as BI is jointly influ-
enced by a person’s overall attitude towards the use of the tech-
nology (A) and the perceived usefulness (PU). Subjective per-
ceptions regarding the system’s ease of use are theorized to be
fundamental determinants of the system use, too. They directly
influence A and PU. Again, PU refers to the extent to which
a system would enhance a person’s job performance within an
organizational context. Perceived ease of use (PEOU) is the de-
gree of effort needed to use the system. Furthermore, external
variables affect one’s attitude and behaviour indirectly through
their impact on PU and PEOU [20]. TAM has been the subject
of various studies and extensions whereas PETs were, to the
best of our knowledge, seldom considered as a research object
in the context of TAM (e.g. the paper by Benenson et al. [8] is
based on TAM for the case of anonymous credentials). How-
ever, the model is well suited for our case of explaining the
behavioral intention and actual use behavior of PETs due to
the following reasons. First, the model and the respective con-
structs are widely tested in the literature and the base model
provides valid and reliable measures of the above mentioned
variables. Thus, we argue that these constructs provide an ap-
propriate basis for explaining technology acceptance of PETs.
Second, the model is parsimonious, i.e. there are relatively few
constructs necessary to explain a relatively large share of the
variance in the target constructs. This makes it possible to add
technology-specific variables (in our case for PETs) without
overspecifying the model and minimizing an overspecification
bias. We adapt the original constructs of TAM to the case of
PETs by specifying perceived usefulness as the usefulness of a
PET to protect the user’s privacy. We argue that this definition
is reasonable for our examplary PETs (Tor and JonDonym)
since they enable users to do multiple tasks while privacy pro-
tection is the evident goal when using them. This perception
regarding the usefulness to protect the user’s privacy is there-
fore theorized to be crucial when deciding to use a PET. In
summary, we argue that our adapted TAM model serves as an
appropriate theoretical underlying for answering our research
questions and contribute to our understanding regarding the
main factors influencing individuals’ use behavior of PETs.
2.3 Related Work
Previous non-technical work on PETs mainly considers
usability studies and does not primarily focus on technology
acceptance of these technologies. For example, Lee et al. [39]
assess the usability of the Tor Launcher and propose recom-
mendations to overcome the found usability issues. In a quali-
tative study, Forte et al. [24] examine perceived risks and pri-
vacy concerns of Tor users and Wikipedia editors who are con-
cerned about their privacy. Previous related work investigates
privacy concerns and trust with respect to JonDonym [30] and
Tor [31] based on Internet users’ information privacy concerns
(IUIPC) [40]. Comparable studies to the study at hand with
respect to the underlying theory of technology acceptance are
the ones by Benenson et al. [8, 9] and Krontiris et al. [38]
who investigate acceptance factors for an anonymous creden-
tial service. However, in their case the anonymous credential
service is integrated into a course evaluation system. Thus, the
users of their anonymous credential service had a clearly de-
fined primary task (evaluation of the course system) and a
secondary task (ensure privacy protection). Benenson et al. fo-
cused on the measurement of the perceived usefulness of the
anonymous credential system (the secondary goal), but state
that considering the perceived usefulness for the primary goals
as well, may change the relationship between the variables in
their model [8]. In contrast to their study, we examine a stan-
dalone PET, and thus can focus on privacy protection as the
primary goal of the users with respect to the PET. Compared
to the previous studies, Brecht et al. [11] focus on no specific
anonymization service in their analysis on acceptance factors.
In addition, they do not base their model on classical technol-
ogy acceptance variables like we do in this paper.
3 Methodology
In the following subsections, we discuss the research
model and hypotheses based on the extended TAM, the ques-
tionnaire and the data collection process. In addition, we pro-
vide a brief overview of the employed quantitative statistical
analysis approach.
3.1 Research Model and Hypotheses
PETs are structurally different compared to technologies
used in the job context or pleasure-oriented (hedonic) informa-
tion systems like games. Therefore, the research hypotheses
and the model must be derived according to the properties of
the specific technology (see Table 3 for the differences of the
results between Tor and JonDonym [29]).
Explaining the Technology Use Behavior of Privacy-Enhancing Technologies: The Case of Tor and JonDonym 115
In general, it is obvious to users what a certain technol-
ogy does. For example, if users employ a spreadsheet program
in their job environment, they will see the immediate result
of their action when the program provides them a calculation.
The same holds for pleasure-oriented technologies which pro-
vide an immediate feedback to the user during the interaction.
However, this interaction and feedback structure is different
with PETs. Anonymity is the main goal which a user can
achieve by using PETs. However, most PETs are designed to
not harm the user experience. Besides some negative side ef-
fects such as a loss of speed during browsing the internet or an
increasing occurrence of CAPTCHAs [15], the user may not
be able to detect the running of the PET at all (which would be
the optimal characteristic of a PET). The direct effects of the
increased anonymity in general go undetected since they con-
sist of long term consequences, e.g. different advertisements,
unless the user visits special websites with anonymity tests or
showing the internet address of the request. In summary, the
main impact of a PET is not immediately tangible for the user.
Therefore, perceptions about the achieved impact of us-
ing the technology should be specifically incorporated in any
model dealing with drivers of use behavior. This matches
the observation that most users do not base their decisions
on any kind of formal (technical or mathematical) anonymity
measurement. Thus, we adapted a formerly tested and vali-
dated construct named “perceived anonymity” to the case of
the PETs Tor and JonDonym [8]. The construct mainly asks
for the perceptions of users about their level of anonymity
achieved by the use of the PET. Due to the natural importance
of anonymity for a PET, we argue that these perceptions will
have an important effect on the trust in the technology. Thus,
the more users think that the PET will create anonymity during
their online activities, the more they will trust the PET (H1a).
Creating anonymity for its users is the main purpose of a PET.
Thus, we hypothesize that the perceived anonymity has a pos-
itive effect on the perceived usefulness of the PET to protect
the users’ privacy (H1b).
H1a: Perceived anonymity when using PETs has a positive
effect on trust in PETs.
H1b: Perceived anonymity when using PETs has a positive
effect on the perceived usefulness of PETs to protect the
users’ privacy.
Trust is a diverse concept integrated in several models in
the Information Systems (IS) domain. It is shown that different
trust relationships exist in the context of technology adoption
of information systems [54]. Trust can refer to the technology
(in our case PETs (Tor and JonDonym)) as well as to the ser-
vice provider. Since the non-profit organization of Tor evolved
around the service [56], it is rather difficult for users to dis-
tinguish which label refers to the technology itself and which
refers to the organization. The same holds for JonDonym since
JonDonym is the only main service offered by the commercial
company JonDos. Therefore, we argue that it is rather difficult
for users to distinguish which label refers to the technology
itself and which refers to the company. Thus, we decided to
ask for trust in the PET (Tor and JonDonym, respectively), as-
suming that the difference to ask for trust in the organization /
company is negligible.
Literature shows that trust in services enables positive at-
titudes towards interacting with these services [44]. Applying
this logic to the case of technologies, we hypothesize that a
higher level of trust in a given technology causes a stronger be-
havioral intention to use this technology (H2a). Besides this di-
rect effect on use intentions, trust influences the perceived use-
fulness of a given technology. Thus, we argue that the higher
the trust in the PET, the higher is the level of perceived useful-
ness of protecting the user’s privacy (H2b). Lastly, we hypoth-
esize that trust in PETs has a positive effect on the perceived
ease of use of PETs (H2c). Previous literature supports this
hypothesis, indicating that a higher level of trust in a given
technology decreases the need to understand each and every
detail of the technology [14]. This is especially relevant for
the case of PETs since they represent a kind of technology
with a relatively high level of complexity (e.g. compared to
pleasure-oriented information systems).
H2a: Trust in PETs has a positive effect on the behavioral
intention to use the technology.
H2b: Trust in PETs has a positive effect on the perceived
usefulness of protecting the user’s privacy.
H2c: Trust in PETs has a positive effect on the perceived ease
of use of PETs.
The theoretical underlying of hypotheses H3, H4a, H4b
and H5 is adapted from the original work on TAM by
Davis [18, 19] since PETs are not different to other technolo-
gies with regard to the relationships of perceived usefulness,
perceived ease,behavioral intention to use and actual use be-
havior. However, perceived usefulness refers explicitly to pri-
vacy protection as it is the sole purpose of the technology.
The rationale for hypotheses 3 and 4a are straightforward. The
higher the perceived usefulness and ease of use of a given tech-
nology, the stronger the behavioral intention to use this tech-
nology. Literature indicates that perceived ease of use itself has
a positive effect on the perceived usefulness of a technology
(H4b). Improvements in ease of use contribute to efficiency
gains and enable users of a given technology to accomplish
the same goals with less effort [18, 19]. We argue that this
rationale also holds for PETs, since a PET which is easy to
use requires less mental effort to fulfill the goal of protecting
user’s privacy. Research on the relationship between behav-
ioral intention and actual use behavior consistently indicates
Explaining the Technology Use Behavior of Privacy-Enhancing Technologies: The Case of Tor and JonDonym 116
that there is a positive relationship between the two variables,
where behavioral intention has a positive effect on actual use
behavior [22, 52]. We assume that this relationship is also ap-
parent for the case of PETs (H5). In summary, we hypothesize:
H3: The perceived usefulness of protecting the user’s privacy
has a positive effect on the behavioral intention to use the
technology.
H4a: Perceived ease of use has a positive effect on the behav-
ioral intention to use the technology.
H4b: Perceived ease of use has a positive effect on the per-
ceived usefulness of protecting the user’s privacy.
H5: The behavioral intention to use PETs has a positive effect
on the actual use behavior.
These hypotheses constitute the research model illustrated in
Figure 1.
3.2 Questionnaire and Data Collection
The questionnaire constructs are adapted from different
sources. Perceived ease of use (PEOU) and perceived useful-
ness are adapted from Venkatesh and Davis [59], behavioral
intention (BI) is adapted from Venkatesh et al. [60], trust in
the PET service is adapted from Pavlou [44] and perceived
anonymity is adapted from Benenson et al. [8]. The former
constructs are measured based on a seven-point Likert scale,
ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”. The
actual use behavior is measured with a ten-item frequency
scale [49]. The adapted questionnaire items can be found in
Table 1. These items are solely used for the quantitative anal-
ysis in Section 5. Besides these questions, we asked partici-
pants for their age, education and gender. However, we can-
not present a reliable overview of these variables since they
were not mandatory to fill out. This was done on purpose since
we assumed that most of the participants are highly sensitive
with respect to their personal data and could potentially react
to mandatory demographic questions by terminating the sur-
vey. Consequently, the demographics are incomplete to a large
extent. Therefore, we had to resign from a discussion of the
demographics in our research context.
We conducted the studies with German and English-
speaking users of Tor and JonDonym. For each service, we ad-
ministered two questionnaires. All items for the German ques-
tionnaire had to be translated into German since all of the con-
structs are adapted from English literature. To ensure content
validity of the translation, we followed a rigorous translation
process: We translated the English questionnaire into German
with the help of a certified translator (translators are standard-
ized by the DIN EN 15038 norm). The German version was
then given to a second independent certified translator who re-
translated the questionnaire to English. This step was done to
ensure the equivalence of the translation. Last, a group of five
academic colleagues checked the equivalence of the two En-
glish versions. All items were found to be equivalent.
Since we investigate the drivers of the use behavior of
PETs, we collected data from actual users of the PETs. We in-
stalled the surveys on a university server and managed it with
the LimeSurvey [51]. For Tor, we distributed the links to the
English and German version over multiple channels on the in-
ternet. Although there are 2,000,000 to 8,000,000 active users
of the service, it was relatively difficult to gather the neces-
sary number of complete answers for a quantitative analysis.
Thus, to foster future research about Tor users, we provide an
overview of every distribution channel in the appendix. In sum,
314 participants started the questionnaire (245 for the English
version, 40 for the English version posted in hidden service fo-
rums and 29 for the German version). Of those 314 approached
participants, 135 (105 for the English version, 13 for the En-
glish version posted in hidden service forums and 17 for the
German version) filled out the questionnaires completely. Af-
ter deleting all participants who answered a test question in the
middle of the survey incorrectly, 124 usable data sets remained
for the following analysis. The test question simply asked par-
ticipants to select a specified answer in a given set. Questions
like this are usually added to questionnaires to check for the
awareness of the participants and avoid participants just click-
ing through the survey without carefully reading the questions.
For JonDonym, we distributed the links to the English
and German version with the beta version of the JonDonym
browser and published them on the official JonDonym home-
page. This made it possible to address the actual users of the
PET in the most efficient manner. 416 participants started the
questionnaire (173 for the English version and 243 for the
German version). Of those 416 approached participants, 141
(53 for the English version and 88 for the German version) re-
mained after deleting unfinished sets and all participants who
answered a test question in the middle of the survey incorrectly.
In total, our sample consists of 265 complete answers.
We also addressed potential ethical issues of the user sur-
vey. The ethics board of the authors’ university provides an
extensive checklist which qualifies our study as exempt for an
ethics review. However, in order to inform participants about
our data collection process we provided information about the
related research project and the goal of the study (improve
PETs and investigate their acceptance factors). Furthermore,
we stated that all answers are anonymous (e.g. no saving of
IP addresses), that all answers are stored on a German server
and that by participating in the survey, participants agree that
their answers are used for scientific publications, research pub-
lications and a PhD thesis. We provided an open-text-field for
Explaining the Technology Use Behavior of Privacy-Enhancing Technologies: The Case of Tor and JonDonym 117
Fig. 1. Research model showing the structural model with the research hypotheses
feedback and a researcher’s e-mail address for further ques-
tions and requests at the end of the survey.
3.3 Statistical Analysis Approach
We hypothesize that perceived anonymity and trust in the
PET, along with the standard variables drawn from the TAM
(cf. Section 2.2), are measurable underlying constructs that in-
fluence the adoption of Tor and JonDonym. To test this, we use
the questionnaire described in Section 3.2 to measure these
constructs, and apply a standard statistical analysis approach
called structural equation modelling (SEM) to assess our re-
search model and the corresponding hypotheses regarding the
cause-effect relationships among these constructs. SEM can re-
veal how much of the variance in the dependent variables (ef-
fects) can be explained by the independent variables (causes).
There are two main approaches for SEM, namely covariance-
based SEM (CB-SEM) and partial least squares SEM (PLS-
SEM). Since our research goal is to predict the dependent vari-
ables (effects) behavioral intention and actual use behavior of
PETs and maximize the explained variance for these depen-
dent variables, we use PLS-SEM [27] for our analysis (Hair et
al. extensively discuss on the use of PLS-SEM [26]).
4 Validity and Reliability Testing
We tested our model (cf. Section 3) using SmartPLS ver-
sion 3.2.7 [48]. Before looking at the result of the structural
model and discussing its implications, we discuss the measure-
ment model, and check for the reliability and validity of our
results. This is a precondition of being able to interpret the re-
sults of the structural model. Furthermore, it is recommended
to report the computational settings. For the PLS algorithm, we
chose the suggested path weighting scheme with a maximum
of 300 iterations and a stop criterion of 107. For the boot-
strapping procedure, we used 5000 bootstrap subsamples and
no sign changes as the method for handling sign changes dur-
ing the iterations of the bootstrapping procedure [26]. We met
the suggested minimum sample size with 265 datasets consid-
ering the threshold of ten times the number of structural paths
headed towards a latent construct in the model [27].
4.1 Measurement Model Assessment
As the model is measured solely reflectively, we need to
evaluate the internal consistency reliability, convergent valid-
ity and discriminant validity to assess the measurement model
properly [27]. Internal consistency reliability (ICR) measure-
ments indicate how well certain indicators of a construct mea-
sure the same latent phenomenon. Two standard approaches
for assessing ICR are Cronbach’s αand the composite relia-
bility. The values of both measures should be between 0.7 and
0.95 for research that builds upon accepted models. Values of
Cronbach’s αare seen as a lower bound and values of the com-
posite reliability as an upper bound of the assessment [26]. Ta-
ble 1 includes the ICR of the variables in the last two rows. It
can be seen that all values for Cronbach’s αand the composite
Explaining the Technology Use Behavior of Privacy-Enhancing Technologies: The Case of Tor and JonDonym 118
reliability are above the lower threshold of 0.7 and no value is
above 0.95. In sum, ICR is established for our variables.
In a next step, we assess the convergent validity to de-
termine the degree to which indicators of a certain reflective
construct are explained by that construct. For that, we calcu-
late the outer loadings of the indicators of the constructs (in-
dicator reliability) and evaluate the average variance extracted
(AVE) [26]. Loadings above 0.7 imply that the indicators have
much in common, which is desirable for reflective measure-
ment models. Table 1 shows the outer loadings with grey back-
ground on the diagonal. All loadings are higher than 0.7. Con-
vergent validity for the construct is assessed by the AVE. AVE
is equal to the sum of the squared loadings divided by the num-
ber of indicators. A threshold of 0.5 is acceptable, indicating
that the construct explains at least half of the indicators’ vari-
ance. The first column of Table 2 presents the constructs’ AVE.
All values are above 0.5, demonstrating convergent validity.
The next step for assessing the measurement model is
the evaluation of discriminant validity. It measures the de-
gree of uniqueness of a construct compared to other con-
structs. Two approaches are used for investigating discrimi-
nant validity. The first approach, assessing cross-loadings, is
dealing with single indicators. All outer loadings of a cer-
tain construct should be larger than its cross-loadings with
other constructs [26]. Table 1 illustrates the cross-loadings as
off-diagonal elements. All cross-loadings are smaller than the
outer loadings, fulfilling the first assessment approach of dis-
criminant validity. In the second approach, we compare the
square root of the constructs’ AVE with the correlations with
other constructs. The square root of the AVE of a single con-
struct should be larger than the correlation with other con-
structs (Fornell-Larcker criterion). Table 2 contains the square
root of the AVE as on-diagonal values. All values fulfill the
Fornell-Larcker criterion, indicating discriminant validity.
The last step of the measurement model assessment is to
check for common method bias (CMB). CMB can occur if data
is gathered with a self-reported survey at one point in time in
one questionnaire [41]. Since this is the case in our research
design, we test for CMB. An unrotated principal component
factor analysis is performed with the software package STATA
14.0 to conduct the Harman’s single-factor test to address the
issue of CMB [47]. The assumptions of the test are that CMB
is not an issue if there is no single factor that results from the
factor analysis or that the first factor does not account for the
majority of the total variance. The test shows that four factors
have eigenvalues larger than 1 which account for 72.04% of
the total variance. The first factor explains 46.51% of the total
variance. Thus, no single factor emerged and the first factor
does not explain the majority of the variance. Hence, we argue
that CMB is not likely to be an issue.
4.2 Structural Model Assessment
We first test for possible collinearity problems before dis-
cussing the results of the structural model. Collinearity is
present if two predictor variables are highly correlated with
each other. This is important since collinearity can otherwise
bias the results heavily. To address this issue, we assess the in-
ner variance inflation factor (inner VIF). All VIF values above
5 indicate that collinearity between constructs is present [26].
For our model, the highest VIF is 1.892. Thus, collinearity is
apparently not an issue.
We also assessed the predictive relevance of the two added
variables for behavioral intention and actual use behavior in
order to assess whether they are important enough to be in-
cluded in the model. A simple measure for the relevance of
perceived anonymity and trust is to delete both variables and
run the model again. The results show that the R2-value for be-
havioral intention decreases to 41.9% (= 5.8 percentage points
less). Thus, without the two new variables the explained vari-
ance for behavioral intention decreases by 12.2%. A more ad-
vanced measure for predictive relevance is the Q2measure. It
indicates the out-of-sample predictive relevance of the struc-
tural model with regard to the endogenous latent variables
based on a blindfolding procedure [26]. We used an omission
distance d=7. Recommended values for d are between five
and ten. Furthermore, we report the Q2values of the cross-
validated redundancy approach, since this approach is based
on both the results of the measurement model as well as of the
structural model. Detailed information about the calculation is
given by Chin [13]. For our model, Q2is calculated for behav-
ioral intention and use behavior. Values above 0 indicate that
the model has the property of predictive relevance. Omitting
both new variables leads to a decrease of Q2for behavioral
intention from 0.336 to 0.293. R2as well as Q2did not change
for actual use when deleting the new variables, since there is
no direct relation from these constructs to actual use.
5 Quantitative Analysis Results
We present the results of our quantitative analysis in this
section. First, we discuss the path estimates and the R2-values
for our extended technology acceptance model. Second, we
conduct a multigroup analysis in order to investigate potential
differences in the path estimates between Tor and JonDonym.
Explaining the Technology Use Behavior of Privacy-Enhancing Technologies: The Case of Tor and JonDonym 119
Constructs BI PEOU PA TrustPETs PU USE
BI1. I intend to continue using the PET1in the future. 0.884 0.499 0.537 0.573 0.602 0.322
BI2. I will always try to use the PET1in my daily life. 0.830 0.409 0.350 0.408 0.372 0.319
BI3. I plan to continue to use the PET1frequently. 0.931 0.487 0.439 0.545 0.534 0.408
PEOU1. My interaction with the PET1is clear and understandable. 0.503 0.825 0.281 0.386 0.410 0.153
PEOU2. Interacting with the PET1does not require a lot of my mental effort. 0.390 0.826 0.232 0.259 0.361 0.178
PEOU3. I find the PET1to be easy to use. 0.450 0.911 0.233 0.316 0.386 0.211
PEOU4. I find it easy to get the PET1to do what I want it to do. 0.468 0.882 0.338 0.382 0.473 0.232
PA1. The PET1is able to protect my anonymity in during my online activities. 0.488 0.311 0.899 0.593 0.641 0.103
PA2. With the PET1I obtain a sense of anonymity in my online activities. 0.437 0.259 0.885 0.609 0.616 0.143
PA3. The PET1can prevent threats to my anonymity when being online. 0.418 0.276 0.871 0.544 0.582 0.126
TrustPETs 1. The PET1is trustworthy. 0.513 0.348 0.642 0.891 0.608 0.115
TrustPETs 2. The PET1keeps promises and commitments. 0.557 0.386 0.581 0.921 0.568 0.139
TrustPETs 3. I trust the PET1because they keep my best interests in mind. 0.509 0.335 0.556 0.895 0.545 0.166
PU1. Using the PET1improves the performance of my privacy protection. 0.349 0.338 0.459 0.442 0.782 0.130
PU2. Using the PET1increases my level of privacy. 0.559 0.433 0.668 0.626 0.934 0.210
PU3. Using the PET1enhances the effectiveness of my privacy. 0.439 0.429 0.604 0.499 0.882 0.136
PU4. I find the PET1to be useful in protecting my privacy. 0.628 0.456 0.662 0.627 0.896 0.225
USE. Please choose your use frequency2of the PET1. 0.398 0.225 0.140 0.155 0.206 1.000
Cronbach’s α0.859 0.885 0.862 0.886 0.898 -
Composite Reliability 0.914 0.920 0.916 0.929 0.929 -
BI: Behavioral Intention PEOU: Perceived Ease of Use PA: Perceived Anonymity USE: Actual Use Frequency
PU: Perceived Usefulness of Protecting Users’ Privacy 1Tor/JonDonym 210-point scale from "Never" to "All the time"
Table 1. Loadings and cross-loadings of the reflective items and ICR measures
Constructs (AVE) BI PA PEOU PU TrustPETs
BI (0.780) 0.883
PA (0.783) 0.507 0.885
PEOU (0.743) 0.530 0.319 0.862
PU (0.766) 0.579 0.693 0.477 0.875
Trust (0.814) 0.583 0.658 0.396 0.636 0.902
USE 0.398 0.140 0.225 0.206 0.155
Table 2. Discriminant validity and construct correlations
5.1 Technology Acceptance Factors of
PETs
Figure 2 presents the results of the path estimations and
the R2-values of the target variables behavioral intention and
actual use behavior. In addition, we provide the R2-values
for trust,perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness.R2-
values are weak with values around 0.25, moderate with 0.50
and substantial with 0.75 [27]. Based on this classification,
the R2-value for behavioral intention is moderate in size and
weak for the variable actual use behavior. Our model explains
47.7% of the variance in the behavioral intention to use the
PET and 15.8% of the variance of the actual use behavior.
In the Tor survey, several participants answered that they
never use Tor (21 participants answered “never” to the ques-
tion about their use frequency of Tor). This statement of these
21 participants is in contrast to their answer to a question
in which we asked participants how many years they are us-
ing Tor. Here, the respective participants stated that they used
Tor for six years (median of 6 years and an average of 6.87
years). The correlation coefficient between the years of using
Tor and the use frequency is very small and negative with -
0.0222. These 21 answers massively bias the results for the
relationship between behavioral intention and actual use be-
havior (the median value of use frequency is 5). However, we
cannot explain why the participants answered like this. They
either misunderstood the question, answered it intentionally
like this to disguise their activity with Tor or found the scale
for use behavior inappropriate. This might be due to the fact
that the scale only contains “once a month” as the lowest use
frequency besides “never”. It might be possible that these 21
users use Tor only a few times per year or that they used Tor
some years ago and have not used it again since then. There-
fore, they might have chosen never as an answer. However, we
used an established scale to measure use behavior [49], but rec-
ommend to consider this issue in future research with a similar
context. For JonDonym, we did not observe this issue. The re-
spective path coefficients are shown in Table 3. The effect size
between behavioral intention and actual use is 0.679 for Jon-
Donym and 0.179 for Tor.
Three main drivers of perceived usefulness of PETs
The explained variance of perceived usefulness is 58.4%, in-
dicating that the three variables, perceived anonymity,trust
and perceived ease of use explain almost two-thirds of the
variance of this construct. Thus, we identified three major
drivers of users’ perceptions with regard to the usefulness of a
privacy-enhancing technology. This result shows that the two
Explaining the Technology Use Behavior of Privacy-Enhancing Technologies: The Case of Tor and JonDonym 120
Fig. 2. Research model with path estimates and R2values of the structural model for PETs
Relationships
Path coeff.
original
Path coeff.
original
P-values P-values Diff. path coeff. P-values
(JonDonym) (Tor) (JonDonym) (Tor) (|JonDonym - Tor |) (JonDonym vs Tor)
H1a PA TrustPETs 0.597 0.709 < 0.001 < 0.001 0.112 0.865
H1b PA PU 0.543 0.369 < 0.001 < 0.001 0.174 0.088
H2a TrustPETs BI 0.416 0.232 < 0.001 0.010 0.184 0.064
H2b TrustPETs PU 0.173 0.304 0.035 0.008 0.131 0.823
H2c TrustPETs PEOU 0.378 0.431 < 0.001 < 0.001 0.053 0.657
H3 PU BI 0.183 0.300 0.046 0.002 0.117 0.805
H4a PEOU BI 0.206 0.371 0.011 < 0.001 0.165 0.929
H4b PEOU PU 0.182 0.300 0.039 < 0.001 0.118 0.830
H5 BI USE 0.679 0.179 < 0.001 0.029 0.500 < 0.001
BI: Behavioral Intention PEOU: Perceived Ease of Use PA: Perceived Anonymity USE: Actual Use Frequency
PU: Perceived Usefulness of Protecting Users’ Privacy
Table 3. Results of the MGA-analysis (grey background indicates statistical significance at least at the 10% level)
newly added variables are important antecedents in the tech-
nology acceptance model which should be considered in fu-
ture work on this topic. The strongest effect is exerted by the
users’ perceived anonymity provided by the service (H1b con-
firmed). This result is not surprising considering that providing
anonymity is the main goal of a PET. In addition, perceived
anonymity has a relatively strong and statistically significant
effect on trust (H1a confirmed). Thus, users’ trust in PETs is
mainly driven by their perceptions that the service can create
anonymity (R2-value of TrustPETs equals 43.3%).
Trust in PETs is the most important factor
As hypothesized in H2a - H2c, trust has a significant posi-
tive effect on the behavioral intention to use the PET, the
perceived usefulness and the perceived ease of use. Therefore,
trust emerges as a highly relevant concept when determining
the drivers of users’ use behavior of PETs. Among the factors
influencing behavioral intention, it has the strongest effect size
(0.316). As discussed earlier, hypotheses H3 - H5 are adapted
from the original work on TAM [18, 19] and can be confirmed
for the case of PETs.
Significant total effects of trust and perceived anonymity
Since the effects of perceived anonymity and trust on behav-
ioral intention and the actual use behavior are partially indi-
rect, we determine and analyze the total effects for these vari-
ables (cf. Table 4). It can be seen that the total effects for be-
havioral intention are relatively large and highly statistically
significant. Thus, perceived anonymity and trust strongly in-
fluence the target variable behavioral intention. Due to the
Explaining the Technology Use Behavior of Privacy-Enhancing Technologies: The Case of Tor and JonDonym 121
Total effect Effect size P-value
PA BI 0.446 < 0.001
PA USE 0.177 < 0.001
TrustPETs BI 0.511 < 0.001
TrustPETs USE 0.203 < 0.001
Table 4. Total effects for perceived anonymity and trust in PETs
discussed bias in the construct USE, the total effects for this
variable are comparably small.
5.2 Multigroup Analysis
After the analysis of the whole data sample, we split the
data set into two parts and analyze the results for Tor and Jon-
Donym separately. For that, we conduct a multigroup analysis
and test whether there are statistically significant differences
for each of the hypotheses.
Since JonDonym and Tor are different with respect to
the pricing schemes and the organizational structure of the
providers, we are interested whether there are significant dif-
ferences in the hypothesized relationships between the vari-
ables. For that purpose, we conducted a multigroup analysis
in SmartPLS (cf. Table 3). We use a less conservative level of
statistical significance of 10% in this table since the p-value
is sensitive to the relatively small sample sizes when compar-
ing results for Tor and JonDonym. Thus, we provide this level
of statistical significance in this analysis to indicate potential
statistically significant differences between the effects for Tor
and JonDonym. In addition, the oftentimes referenced statis-
tical significance level of 5% only indicates a “convenient”
threshold for judging statistical significance [23] and can be
considered a rule of thumb.
Trust is less important for Tor than for JonDonym
The results indicate that all relationships are similar for both
PETs with respect to direction of the effect and effect size (see
the path coefficients for both PETs). This supports the assump-
tion that Tor is comparable to JonDonym from a user’s perspec-
tive. Only three relationships are significantly different for the
two technologies (p-value of difference smaller than 0.1). First,
the effect of perceived anonymity on perceived usefulness is
weaker for Tor than for JonDonym. Furthermore, trust in the
PET is significantly less important for Tor than for JonDonym.
Differences in these relationships can have many causes.
Among others, Tor exists longer and has significantly more
users. However, the results are especially interesting when con-
sidering the structures of the two organizations. Tor has a more
community-oriented structure based on donations, whereas
JonDonym is operated by a profit-oriented company which
charges money for the unlimited use of the PET [35]. Thus,
users possibly focus more on the trust in the PET if it is op-
erated by a commercial company, which leads to a stronger
influence of trust on the use intentions and behaviors.
In contrast to this, Tor might be perceived as a technol-
ogy that is based on the community which operates the used
servers voluntarily without financial intentions. This leads to a
wide distribution of the infrastructure and trust in the service
is not needed from a technical point of view since the commu-
nication can only be intercepted if each server is controlled by
one attacker. Therefore, users might perceive that the need for
trust is not as important as if a profit-oriented company oper-
ates the PET.
6 Qualitative Analysis Results
We augment our quantitative results from the previous
section with a qualitative analysis of answers to five open
questions included in the questionnaires. By that, we provide
deeper insights into certain aspects of the quantitative analy-
sis from Section 5 and hints to relevant questions for future
work. We show the questions and the number of answers to
them in Table 5. These numbers exclude answers as “I don’t
know”, “no” and so on. Two researchers analyzed the state-
ments independently from each other and abstracted the invid-
iual answers to codes. Codes summarize the data and present
different dimensions of a concept. For example, we find that
usability is an important concept for both technologies. How-
ever, the results indicate that usability can be both a negative
as well as a positive characteristic, depending on the user and
the respective context. For example, the code “usability” joins
negative as well as positive perceptions of users.
We do the coding of the 626 statements to the open ques-
tions in two stages. We use a coding method from sociol-
ogy [12, 25], which comprises two or three coding phases,
namely initial coding, axial coding and focused coding. We
only use initial and focused coding since this level of structur-
ing is sufficient for our data [12]. First, we initially code each
of the statements. These initial codes in itself provide a sort-
ing and structuring for the data. Initial codes represent topics
that occur frequently in the data, i.e. topics often mentioned
by participants. In our case, we decide to name these codes
“Subconcepts” in our results since they already provide one
level of abstraction. After the initial coding phase, we compare
the different codings of the researchers and discussed the in-
dividual codes. Thereby, we agreed upon certain subconcepts
which were similar or the same but expressed differently by
the coders. In a next step, we calculated the intercoder reli-
ability. We did not use a common codebook or a predefined
set of codes to do the initial coding. Therefore, known reli-
Explaining the Technology Use Behavior of Privacy-Enhancing Technologies: The Case of Tor and JonDonym 122
Questions Number of answers for
JonDonym Tor
1. Do you have any concerns about using JonDonym / Tor? 56 85
2. Under which circumstances would you choose one of the premium tariffs? (JonDonym) 76 not applicable
3. Which additional features would you like to have at your current tariff? (JonDonym) 32
3. Which additional features would you like to have for Tor? 124
4. Why would you recommend JonDonym / Tor? 122 102
5. Why would you not recommend JonDonym / Tor? 11 18
297 329
Table 5. Open-ended questions from the survey and number of answers
ability measures as Cohen’s Kappa [16] are not usable for
our case since these measures are relying on predefined cat-
egories. Consequently, we use a very simple calculation in or-
der to provide a reliability measure dividing the number of
equally coded statements by the total number of statements to
be coded. We had 226 matches for Tor and 242 matches for
JonDonym, which yields a intercoder reliablity of 68.69% and
81,48%, respectively (cf. Table 5 for the total number of state-
ments for each PET). Thus, the intercoder reliability is equal
to 74.76% for both PETs. These numbers are relatively large
considering that we coded independently from each other with-
out agreeing to fixed subconcepts beforehand. We also count
the incidents in which one of the coders had at least one more
code assigned to a statement than the other coder in order to
provide more transparency of our coding process. This hap-
pened 52 times (coder 1 had 29 times more codes, coder 2
had 23 times more codes) for Tor and 44 times for JonDonym
(coder 1 had 27 times more codes, coder 2 had 17 times more
codes). These instances are counted towards the mismatches
in the intercoder reliability measures.
In the second step, we structured the most occuring
themes in these initial codes and came up with the focused
codes. We name these codes “Concepts” in Table 6 since we
find that users primarily make statements about either techni-
cal issues, about their beliefs and perceptions or about eco-
nomic issues.
During the coding, we saw that there are certain subcon-
cepts that hold for both, Tor and JonDonym. However, there
are also subconcepts which are different for both PETs or non-
existent in the data for either one of the technologies. There-
fore, we illustrate these differences separately in columns four
and five of Table 6. We provide quotes from the statements
for each concept, except for “Costs” and “Payment methods”
since they are rather straightforward and users just stated that
JonDonym should be cheaper and offer certain payment meth-
ods mentioned in the table.
Similar subconcepts to quantitative model
The results include four subconcepts which can be found in
the investigated model of the quantitative part (Section 5). Par-
ticipants mention usability,performance,anonymity and trust
oftentimes in the context of concerns or why they would or
would not recommend the respective PET. As mentioned be-
fore, these concepts are not tied to a certain positive or nega-
tive interpretation. This becomes obvious when looking at the
exemplary quotes in the table.
Usability positively influences use behavior
Usability is mentioned most of the times in the context of a pos-
itive factor influencing the use. This means, if a PET is easy
to use, users will prefer to use it (Tor.5,Jon.5). In contrast,
participants mentioned for both PETs that they would like to
have a better documentation in order to enhance the usabil-
ity (Tor.4,Jon.4). We also find another interesting dimension
for usability in the data. Some participants stated that missing
knowledge about the correct use of the PET can lead to worse
results with respect to privacy than without using the PET at
all. This implies that some users are concerned that the degree
of ease of use is not as high as it should be, especially con-
sidering layman users. This could lead to situations in which
layman users think that the PET works properly, while it in-
deed does not (Tor.6,Jon.6).
Limited performance in the free version of JonDonym
The concept performance is only partially equivalent to per-
ceived usefulness since we defined it as usefulness to protect
the user’s privacy. However, we argue that a PET needs to
fulfill the requirement of low latency in order to be useful in
the sense of protecting the users privacy. Therefore, we argue
that the concept performance can be seen as the equivalent
to the variable perceived usefulness in the quantitative model.
It slightly differs for Tor (Tor.7) and JonDonym since par-
ticipants only mention the issue for JonDonym when talking
about the free of charge option (Jon.7,Jon.8) (the decreased
performance is implemented by default for this option as a fea-
ture of the tariff [35]).
Anonymity and concerns regarding deanonymization
The concept anonymity is mentioned in the context of repre-
senting the main purpose of why participants use a PET (Tor.9,
Jon.10). However, another dimension of this concept is a con-
cern of being deanonymized by a variety of attackers, espe-
Explaining the Technology Use Behavior of Privacy-Enhancing Technologies: The Case of Tor and JonDonym 123
Concepts Subconcepts Common to both PETs
Specific Subconcepts for Tor
Specific Subconcepts for JD
Statements
about
Technical
Issues
PET design
Feature Requests (
Tor.1
,
Jon.1
)
Malicious exit nodes (
Tor.2
)
Location of mix cascades (Jon.2)
Compatibility Accessibility of websites
(Tor.3,Jon.3)
Usability Documentation (Tor.4,Jon.4)
Ease of use (Tor.5,Jon.5)
Missing knowledge to use it cor-
rectly (Tor.6,Jon.6)
Performance Latency (Tor.7,Jon.7,Jon.8)
Beliefs and
Percep-
tions
Anonymity
Concerns about deanonymiza-
tion (Tor.8,Jon.9)
Reason of use (Tor.9,Jon.10)
Size of the user base (Jon.11)
Consequences Fear of investigations
(Tor.10,Tor.11,Jon.12)
Beliefs about social effects
(Tor.13,Tor.14)
Trust
Trust in the community
(Tor.12)
Trust in technology (Jon.13)
Substitute
technologies
Best available tool
(Tor.15,Jon.14)
Tor as reference technology
(Jon.3,Jon.8,Jon.11)
Statements
about
Economical
Issues
Costs
Lower costs, other pricing schemes
(Jon.15)
Payment
methods
Easy, anonymous payment options
(Jon.15)
Use cases
Circumvent Censorship
(Tor.16)
Willingness to pay in certain scenarios
(Jon.16,Jon.17)
Tor.1 TCP support for name resolution via Tor’s DNSPort
[...]
Tor.2 Many exit nodes are run by governmental intelligence
organisations. Exit notes can collect unencrypted data.
Tor.3 It can’t be used on all websites; therefore it is of limited
use to me
Tor.4 Easy to understand instructions for users with different
levels of knowledge.
Tor.5 Tor protects privacy while on the web and is easy to use.
Tor.6 An unexperienced user may not understand the techni-
cal limitations of Tor and end up losing [. . .] privacy.
Tor.7 Increased latency makes the experience painful at times
Tor.8 It may fail to provide the expected level of anonymity
because of attacks which may not even be known at the
time they are performed (or commonplace).
Tor.9 It is a key component to maintaining one’s privacy when
browsing on the Internet.
Tor.10 Tor usage "Stands out"
Tor.11 [. . .] having a cop boot at my door because of Tor.
Tor.12 An end user needs to trust the network, the persons
running Tor nodes and correct implementations [.. .]
Tor.13 Only social backlash from people thinking that Tor is
mostly used for illegal activities.
Tor.14 For the same reason I don’t hang out in brothels, using
Tor makes you look like a criminal
Tor.15 While not perfect, Tor is the best option for reliable
low-latency anonymization
Tor.16 It can be used as a proxy / VPN to get past censorship
Jon.1 Larger number of Mix Cascades, more recent software,
i.e. preconfigured browser, faster security updates
Jon.2 First and last server of the mix cascade should not be
located in the same country
Jon.3 Unlike Tor, JonDonym is not blocked by some websites.
(Google for example among others)
Jon.4 Clearer explanations and instructions for JonDoFox
Jon.5 Easy to use, outside the mainstream like i.e. Tor
Jon.6 Privacy is less than expected because of wrong config-
uration settings.
Jon.7 [. . .] Even if it is quite slow without a premium tariff
Jon.8 [. . . ] sometimes it’s a little bit to slow, but compared
with Tor...
Jon.9 Defeat of your systems by government agencies.
Jon.10 It provides a minimum level of personal data protec-
tion and online safety.
Jon.11 Tor is better due to having a much larger user base.
More users results in greater anonymity
Jon.12 By using the service, am I automatically marked by in-
telligence authorities as a potential terrorist, supporter
of terrorist organizations, user [. . . ] for illegal things?
Jon.13 How can I trust Jondonym? How can Jondonym proof
that servers are trustworthy?
Jon.14 It appeared to be the least worst option for anonymi-
sation when I researched anonymisation services
Jon.15 Fair pricing, pre-paid is an easy payment option.
Jon.16 For use it in a country where it’s difficult surf the net
Jon.17 If I would use the computer for work-related tasks
Table 6. Results of the coding for the open questions including quotes
Explaining the Technology Use Behavior of Privacy-Enhancing Technologies: The Case of Tor and JonDonym 124
cially government agencies (Tor.8,Jon.9) and by the fact that
the anonymity set is too small because of a user base which is
too small. The small user base is only mentioned as a concern
by users of JonDonym (Jon.11).
Trust as a use factor and reason for concerns
The last concept which can be found in the quantitative model
is trust in the technology. As for usability,trust is mentioned
as a concern but also as a reason for recommending both PETs
in our sample. However, the qualitative analysis reveals that
the trust dimensions are slightly different between Tor and Jon-
Doym. For Tor, participants mainly mention trust in the com-
munity (Tor.12), whereas the community aspect is not existent
for JonDonym. For JonDonym, participants mainly focus on
trust in the company and the technology (Jon.13). In summary,
our findings related to trust support the quantitative results and
strengthen our claim that trust in the technology is a major fac-
tor in a user’s decision to use a PET. However, the results also
show that future work should consider to differentiate the con-
cept of trust and adapt it to the specific context of the PET.
New concepts emerged in the qualitative analysis
The concepts “PET design”, “compatibility”, “social issues”,
“substitute technologies” and the “statements about economi-
cal issues” are not reflected in our quantitative model. Partici-
pants still mention these concepts several times and we argue
that they might be interesting to consider for future work deal-
ing with technology acceptance of PETs.
Technical design of PETs affect concerns
“PET design” describes mainly concerns about the technical
structure of the PETs which is prone to attacks (especially
by government agencies). Tor and JonDonym differ in their
technical structure which is reflected in the statements. Sev-
eral participants mention “malicious exit nodes” as a technical
issue for Tor (Tor.2). For JonDonym, participants are mainly
concerned about the location of the mix cascades (Jon.2). Re-
lated to “PET design” is the concept “substitute technologies”.
Here, several participants state for Tor and JonDonym that
the respective PET is the “best option available” amongst the
existing PETs (Tor.15,Jon.14). Thus, the concern about the
technical design might be compensated partially by this opin-
ion of users. Interestingly, several other JonDonym users men-
tion Tor several times as a comparative technology to argue
about advantages of JonDonym (Jon.3,Jon.8). Participants
oftentimes make this comparison in the context of deciding
when they would spend money for a JonDonym premium tar-
iff. Here, they argue that they would only do this, if Tor was
not existent. This is due to costs, but also due to the larger
anonymity set provided by Tor (Jon.11). This result implies
that there are very high market entry barriers for comparable
commercial PETs due to the strong market position of Tor. Re-
lated to the design of Tor and JonDonym are feature requests
mentioned by participants. For example, participants ask for
TCP support for Tor (Tor.1) and faster security updates for
JonDonym (Jon.1).
Compatibility of PETs with websites affects adoption
“Compatibility” describes concerns and statements why partic-
ipants would not recommend the PETs. They primarily men-
tion accessibility issues with websites when using the respec-
tive PET (Tor.3,Jon.3). This is an important factor to consider
for future technical improvements of the PETs and closely
linked to the usability. PET developers should address this is-
sue to foster a wider market acceptance.
Fear of investigations and adverse social effects
“Consequences” are prevalent for Tor and JonDonym users.
The subconcept represents the fear of PET users that their
use of PETs causes them to “stand out” (Tor.10) and leads
to investigations by police forces or other government agen-
cies (Tor.11,Jon.12). In addition to concerns related to gov-
ernmental agencies, Tor users mentioned adverse social effects
due to the use of Tor. These adverse social effects describe the
belief that other members of the society think negatively about
Tor. For example, participants stated that Tor is oftentimes
primarily associated with illegal activities by others (Tor.13,
Tor.14). This subconcept is interesting for future work dealing
with the acceptance of PETs in the mass market. Layman users
might be susceptible to such perceptions and therefore, avoid
using a PET. Thus, marketers of PETs should stress the ben-
efits for the user’s privacy and self-determination and cleary
address and explain these concerns related to possible conse-
quences and social issues.
Importance of pricing schemes and payment methods
The last part on statements about economical issues is mainly
relevant for JonDonym. The concept “costs” indicates that Jon-
Donym users would like to have other pricing schemes which
are either cheaper or include more available high-speed traf-
fic (Jon.15). The concept “payment methods” is showing that
PET users want a variety of (mainly anonymous) payment
methods like virtual currencies or paysafecards [45] (Jon.15).
The last concept is about “use cases” which influence the de-
cision to use a PET at all. Censorship in certain countries
is the main use scenario represented in this subconcept for
Tor (Tor.16) and JonDonym (Jon.16). In addition, we find that
participants would pay money for JonDonym if they were re-
quired to do sensitive, work-related tasks (Jon.17).
7 Discussion
We found strong effects for the influence of the perceived
anonymity on the behavioral intention to use the PET (RQ1).
The participants mentioned anonymity several times as the
main reasons why they are using Tor or JonDonym. Therefore,
Explaining the Technology Use Behavior of Privacy-Enhancing Technologies: The Case of Tor and JonDonym 125
the results indicate that anonymity is one of the most impor-
tant factors in the use decisions of PETs. In contrast to the
findings of Benenson et al. [8], who found that trust in the
PET has no statistically significant impact on the intention to
use the service, we found a significant medium-sized effect of
trust in the PET on the behavioral intention to use it (0.316)
(RQ2). One possible explanation for the difference between
the literature and our results is that the trust in the service and
the trust in the service provider are perceived as equivalent in
our use case, whereas in the literature trust refers solely to the
technology [8]. In addition, the results of the multigroup anal-
ysis revealed that trust in the PET has a much stronger effect
on the use intentions if the technology is operated by a com-
mercial company (effect stronger for JonDonym compared to
Tor) [5, 35]. However, this is only one possible explanation
and there could be several other omitted variables. Still, it is
an interesting starting point for future work.
Our results indicate that the use behavior of PETs is
mainly influenced by the variables perceived usefulness and
perceived ease of use as well as the newly added variables trust
and perceived anonymity. This result is in line with the given
statements of the participants to the open questions as well as
with previous studies showing that usability is an important
aspect for the use of this PET [11, 21].
Although we checked for several reliability and validity
issues, certain limitations might impact our results. First, the
sample size of 265 participants (124 for Tor and 141 for Jon-
Donym) is relatively small for a quantitative study. However,
since we reached the suggested minimum sample size for the
applied method, we argue that our results are still valid. In ad-
dition, it is very difficult to gather data of actual users of PETs
since it is a comparable small population that we could survey.
It is also relevant to mention that we did not offer any financial
rewards for the participation. Secondly, our sample is likely to
be biased since our sample is by default a subset of anomymity
service users who are privacy sensitive individuals relative to
the rest of the population. Moreover, since they answered our
survey, it could be that the respondents are the least privacy
sensitive of the individuals since the most privacy sensitive in-
dividuals might not even have considered to participate in our
survey. Thus, certain findings from our research might not be
generalizable to a potentially larger user base. A third limita-
tion concerns possible self-report biases (e.g. social desirabil-
ity). We addressed this possible issue by gathering the data
fully anonymized. Fourthly, mixing results of the German and
English questionnaire could be a source of errors. On the one
hand, this procedure was necessary to achieve the minimum
sample size. On the other hand, we followed a very thorough
translation procedure to ensure the highest level of equivalence
as possible. Thus, we argue that this limitation did not affect
the results to a large extent. However, we cannot rule out that
there are unobserved effects on the results due to running the
survey in more than one country at all. In addition, we did
not control for the participants’ actual or former use of differ-
ent standalone PETs. This experience might have an impact
on their assessments of Tor and JonDonym. Furthermore, de-
mographic questions were not mandatory to fill out due to our
assumption that these types of individuals who use Tor or Jon-
Donym are highly cautious with respect to their privacy. Thus,
we decided to go for a larger sample size considering that we
might have lost participants otherwise (if demographics had to
be filled out mandatorily).
Future work can build on the proposed relationships and
extensions of our model to investigate the acceptance and use
of other PETs in more detail. We could explain more than half
of the variance in the target construct behavioral intention with
a rather parsimonious model. For the construct actual use be-
havior, we did not find comparable high values due to the is-
sues with the answers mentioned in Section 5. Furthermore,
the analysis of the open questions shows interesting new con-
cepts to consider in future work on technology acceptance of
PETs. These concepts are about the design of the respective
PET, compatibility when using it (e.g. websites not working
properly), social issues, negative privacy experiences, other
available solutions for privacy protecting and economic factors
(only relevant for commercial applications).
In addition, it would be interesting to investigate the per-
ceptions of non-users about PETs and compare them to actual
users to figure out how the perceptions of these groups differ
with respect to their influence on the use intentions and actual
use behavior.
8 Conclusion
Up to now research on privacy-enhancing technologies
mainly focused on the technical aspects of the technologies.
In addition, to the best of our knowledge, the anonymization
services Tor and JonDonym were not compared in the context
of technology acceptance. However, a successful implementa-
tion and adoption of PETs requires a profound understanding
of the perceptions and behaviors of actual and possible users
of the technologies. Thus, with this paper we investigated ac-
tual users of existing PETs as a first step to address this re-
search problem. Our results indicate that the basic rationale
of technology use models is applicable for PETs like Tor and
JonDonym as well as for other comparable privacy-enhancing
technologies providing a relatively strong level of anonymiza-
tion. The newly introduced variables perceived anonymity and
trust improved the explanatory power of the structural model
for the case of PETs and can be considered as a starting point
Explaining the Technology Use Behavior of Privacy-Enhancing Technologies:The Case of Tor and JonDonym 126
for comparable research problems in future work. The analysis
of the open questions shows that the existing variables in our
technology acceptance model can also be found as relevant
concepts in the statements by the participants (usability,per-
formance,anonymity and trust). In addition, the new concepts
can be considered for future studies in this area.
Our results are a first step towards a deeper understand-
ing of the acceptance of privacy-enhancing technologies. The
results provide insights for developers and marketers to specifi-
cally address issues hindering a broader diffusion of PETs. Re-
search in this area is a real contribution for strengthening the
personal right for privacy in times of ever-increasing personal
data collection in the internet.
9 Acknowledgements
This work was partially supported by German Federal
Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) [grant num-
ber 16KIS0371] and by the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation program from the project Cyber-
Sec4Europe [grant agreement number 830929].
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Distribution Channels of the Tor
Online Survey
1. Mailinglists:
(a) tor-talk1
(b) liberationtech2
(c) IFIP TC 113
(d) FOSAD4
(e) GI PET5
(f) GI FBSEC6
2. Twitter with #tor and #privacy
3. Boards:
(a) reddit (sub-reddits: r/TOR, r/onions, r/privacy)
(b) ubuntuusers.de
4. Tor Hidden Service Boards, Sections posted into:
(a) Darknet Avengers7, Off Topic
(b) The Hub8, Beginners
(c) Onion Land9, Off Topic
(d) 8chan10, /tech/
(e) IntelExchange11, Unverified Users
(f) Code Green12 , Discussions
(g) Changolia13, overchan.random
(h) Atlayo14, Posting
5. Personal Announcements at Workshops
1https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/
mailman/listinfo/tor-talk/
2https://mailman.stanford.edu/
mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
3https://dlist.server.uni-frankfurt.de/
mailman/listinfo/ifip-tc11
4http://www.sti.uniurb.it/events/fosad/
5http://mail.gi-fb- sicherheit.de/
mailman/listinfo/pet
6http://mail.gi-fb- sicherheit.de/
mailman/listinfo/fbsec
7http://avengersdutyk3xf.onion/
8http://thehub7xbw4dc5r2.onion
9http://onionlandbakyt3j.onion
10 http://oxwugzccvk3dk6tj.onion
11 http://rrcc5uuudhh4oz3c.onion
12 http://pyl7a4ccwgpxm6rd.onion
13 http://jewsdid.oniichanylo2tsi4.onion
14 http://atlayofke5rqhsma.onion/
... Understanding the circumstances that lead to user adoption of security and privacy measures is a matter of ongoing research. As Harborth et al. [31] found, perceived anonymity and trust in the service drive perceived usefulness and, consequently, adoption. Security practices requiring reoccurring user interaction are less widely adopted than those requiring fewer interactions [70]. ...
... They found misleading claims, including overpromises and exaggerations, that could negatively influence users' mental model of internet safety. Ads like these may increase users' trust in the services' offered privacy and lead to their adoption [31]. Ramesh et al. [54] found that security and privacy are people's main reasons for adopting VPNs, while around 40% of their participants have flawed mental models of them. ...
... They spent an average of 3 minutes and 52 seconds on the survey, and we compensated all of them with USD 0.62. We excluded data from workers that have not used Tor (31) or failed the attention check question (40), resulting in a final dataset with responses from 119 participants. The median age of the included participants was 30 ( = 7.95). ...
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Users face security folklore in their daily lives in the form of security advice, myths, and word-of-mouth stories. Using a VPN to access the Tor network, i.e., Tor over VPN, is an interesting example of security folklore because of its inconclusive security benefits and its occurrence in pop-culture media. Following the Theory of Reasoned Action, we investigated the phenomenon with three studies: (1) we quantified the behavior on real-world Tor traffic and measured a prevalence of 6.23%; (2) we surveyed users' intentions and beliefs, discovering that they try to protect themselves from the Tor network or increase their general security; and (3) we analyzed online information sources, suggesting that perceived norms and ease-of-use play a significant role while behavioral beliefs about the purpose and effect are less crucial in spreading security folklore. We discuss how to communicate security advice effectively and combat security misinformation and misconceptions.
... Use behavior refers to the actions and activities individuals engage in when utilizing a particular technology, service, or product. It encompasses the actual usage patterns, habits, and interactions that individuals exhibit when employing a specific tool or service (Farzin et al., 2021;Wang & Qi, 2021;Harborth et al., 2020). In the context of this article, the term "use behavior" refers to the immediate cause of a person's behavior, indicating their willingness to continue using an e-procurement system. ...
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The existing body of literature on e-procurement adoption has not adequately predicted the direct and indirect impact of performance expectancy and effort expectancy on the usage behavior of e-procurement system through the attitude of users. This paper focuses on analyzing the direct and indirect effects of various factors that influence the usage behavior of e-procurement systems in Tanzania. The paper was guided by the Social Information Processing (SIP) theory, the Affect Infusion Model (AIM), and the modified Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). The paper also used a deductive perspective and an explanatory cross-sectional survey research approach. A stratified sampling technique was used to identify 383 respondents (buyers and suppliers) that use the e-procurement system. Data gathering was conducted via the use of a documentary review and questionnaire. Inferential statistical analysis was conducted using the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling, with the assistance of SmartPLS 4 software. The results indicate that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and attitude significantly influence positively the usage behavior of the e-procurement system (p value<0.05). The paper finds that the behavior of buyers and suppliers, after the adoption of an e-procurement system, is indirectly impacted by the system's performance expectancy and effort expectancy, via their positive attitudes. The results of this study confirm the usefulness of the proposed research model in directing management decision-making, particularly in determining the importance of investment considerations when implementing or improving an e-procurement system.
... Regarding trust in the app, interestingly there is no significant direct influence from trust to intention to use for the privacy-enhancing app. While previous findings showed a direct effect [9][10][11], it seems that in our experiment the effect of trust on intention to use for the privacy-enhancing app was to a large degree mediated by perceived risk and perceived benefits. Similarly to perceived risks, disposition to value privacy increases both intention to use and perceived risk towards the privacy-enhancing app. ...
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