IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2015 - 75

ithin the global cloud market, accountability is needed
to help overcome barriers
to cloud service adoption. A
key inhibitor for movement to
software-as-a-service (SaaS)
cloud models is lack of consumer trust. "Potential cloud customers perceive a lack of
transparency and relatively less control [on their data]
than with traditional models" [1]. One way of introducing
accountability in the cloud ecosystem is by means of
accountability tools. These tools offer cloud customers
more insight in the use (e.g., processing, storage, sharing and deletion) of their data in the cloud. Moreover,
they promise to promote responsible data stewardship
by both cloud providers and cloud users [2]. However,
the economic viability of these tools remains unclear.
In fact, it is generally assumed that people are willing to pay for cloud services that would otherwise be
free, if these cloud services account for their data
processes and these processes are supervised. This
article explores the economic viability of one of the
accountability tools and mechanisms that account for
responsible data stewardship in the cloud, specifically a
transparency tool. We explore whether individual cloud
customers actually are interested in paying for accountability tools. Thus far, no studies exist to support this
claim and the actual willingness to pay among consumers may be significantly lower than is assumed by
accountability tool developers. Our investigation uses
a sample of lay people and explores their general willingness to pay for a tool that offers them transparency
about their data in the cloud and its use by the cloud
provider and possible others.

Data Stewardship

ISTOCK/alexSl

The notion of accountability and the subsequent need
for tools supporting accountability within the private
cloud sector has gained increased attention [2]-[4].
Accountability is believed to address both the failure
of the market mechanism in the cloud computing sector and governance problems related to the inherent
global nature of cloud computing. Stimulating more
transparency is thought to address the power asymmetry between (international) corporations or cloud
providers and individuals or (smaller) cloud users. The
latter lacks resources and knowledge to assert their
rights to information on how their data is handled in
the cloud. In order to solve the governing problems
related to the more complicated, networked, and global environment for international data transmissions,
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2015.2494373
Date of publication: 17 December 2015

December 2015

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accountability is deemed to shift the cloud market's
focus from the flow of data across boundaries towards
how to govern accountable data behavior, often
referred to as "data stewardship."
The use of accountability in the private cloud sector redefines the relationship between cloud providers
and cloud users and their behavior towards data in the
cloud. It requires organizations to not only be responsive to their shareholders, but also to other stakeholders, including consumers and employees, as well as
other affected members of the public [5]. Consequently,
whereas in the past accountability in the private sector
stood for corporate responsibility, entailing responsibilities to ones shareholders, its renewed use in the cloud
sector embraces the use of the word accountability as
commonly used in the public sector [5], [6]. In other
words, "accountability for an organization consists of
accepting responsibility for data with which it is entrusted in a cloud environment, for its use of the data from
the time it is collected until when the data is destroyed
(including onward transfer to and from third parties).
It involves the commitment to norms, explaining and
demonstrating compliance to stakeholders and remedying any failure to act properly" [7].
In order to meet these accountability requirements,
organizations can make use of several solutions: e.g.,
certification schemes (labeling trust), policy enforcement and compliance tools, and remediation and
redress tools. Importantly these tools and mechanisms
focus upon various stakeholders, e.g., cloud service
provides, cloud consumers, and governmental agencies.
Individual cloud users are one of the stakeholders to
whom organizations or cloud providers should render
account and whom might be interested in more information about the use of their data in the cloud. Therefore, we will focus on a user-centric tool, specifically one
that offers transparency on data whereabouts to cloud
users. The experiment described in this article thus
aims to provide insight in the worth of accountability to
individual cloud users.
For our experiment we make use of a stated preference analysis methodology. Stated preference analysis
is a preferred tool for marketers for determining consumer preferences, and finding out how consumers
make trade-off decisions among competing products
or suppliers [8]. The experiments are developed in the
marketing sector in order to model consumer behavior.
Based on this behavior, consumer decisions and market
value/demand can be extracted. Increasingly this type
of experiment is used in non-market sectors, such as
the health sector. In fact, stated preference analysis has
become a well-known technique to estimate economic
values for goods and services that do not normally
have prices. Therefore, we deem it can be a promising

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