While privacy perceptions and behaviors have been investigated in Western societies, little is known about these issues in non-Western societies. To bridge this gap, we interviewed 30 Google personal account holders in Saudi Arabia about their privacy perceptions and behaviors regarding the activity data that Google saves about them. Our study focuses on Google's Activity Controls, which enable users to control whether, and how, Google saves their Web \& App Activity, Location History, and YouTube History. Our results show that although most participants have some level of awareness about Google's data practices and the Activity Controls, many have only vague awareness, and the majority have not used the available controls. When participants viewed their saved activity data, many were surprised by what had been saved. While many participants find Google's use of their data to improve the services provided to them acceptable, the majority find the use of their data for ad purposes unacceptable. We observe that our Saudi participants exhibit similar trends and patterns in privacy awareness, attitudes, preferences, concerns, and behaviors to what has been found in studies in the US. Our results emphasize the need for: 1) improved techniques to inform users about privacy settings during account sign-up, to remind users about their settings, and to raise awareness about privacy settings; 2) improved privacy setting interfaces to reduce the costs that deter many users from changing the settings; and 3) further research to explore privacy concerns in non-Western cultures.

翻译：尽管西方社会已对隐私认知与行为展开研究，但关于非西方社会的相关问题仍知之甚少。为弥补这一空白，我们访谈了沙特阿拉伯30名谷歌个人账户持有者，了解其对谷歌保存的活动数据的隐私认知与行为。本研究聚焦于谷歌的"活动控制"功能，该功能允许用户控制谷歌是否以及如何保存其网络与应用活动记录、位置记录和YouTube观看历史。结果显示，尽管多数参与者对谷歌的数据实践和活动控制有一定认知，但许多人仅有模糊了解，且大部分未使用现有控制功能。当参与者查看已保存的活动数据时，许多人对其内容感到惊讶。虽然多数参与者认可谷歌使用其数据改进服务，但多数认为将数据用于广告目的不可接受。我们观察到，沙特参与者在隐私意识、态度、偏好、担忧及行为方面，与美国研究中发现的趋势和模式相似。本结果强调需要：1）改进账户注册时的隐私设置告知技术，定期提醒用户检查设置并提升隐私意识；2）优化隐私设置界面，降低阻吓用户更改设置的成本；3）进一步研究非西方文化中的隐私关切问题。