What do people do online?
Using data donation to understand digital behavior.

a workshop at the SPP Junior Researcher Meeting

Frieder Rodewald

University of Mannheim & Institute for Employment Research

Sebastian Prechsl

Institute for Employment Research & LMU Munich

October 22, 2025

2️⃣ What is data donation?

The participant’s perspective.

🤔 Please raise your hand ✋

(Before a week ago…) Who has ever tried to request their data from an online platform?

What are data donation studies?

💡 Definition: Data donation studies are a user-centric method for collecting digital traces.

  • Users have the right to request, access, and download data that platforms collect about them.
  • They can make their data download packages (DDPs) available to science, often in the context of web surveys.
  • Researchers use CSS methods to filter, anonymize, and aggregate this data locally on participants’ devices.
  • Participants can inspect/delete their data before any data is transferred.

Which types of data do DDPs contain?

For platforms like YouTube, Instagram, or LinkedIn, for example… (Hase et al. 2024)

  • User profiles (e.g., privacy settings)
  • Activities (e.g., friends, likes, searches, exposure, analog movements)
  • Content and context (e.g., ads watched, algorithmically inferred interests)

How is data from DDPs different?

Compared to APIs (Ohme et al. 2024)…

  • Control & informed consent of users
  • Longitudinal data without "rate limits"
  • Partly additional measurements (e.g., exposure data; non-public data)

👉 but can be burdensome for participants!

Survey Request & Download Data Extract Data Inspect Data Consent

Survey

Survey start page

Request & Download Data

Different degrees in standardization for data requests (Hase et al. 2024)…

  • Verification procedure (password requirements)
  • Specification of data (metrics, observation period)
  • Notification on provision of DDP
  • Duration of DDP availability

Request manual for LinkedIn on computer

Request manual for Instagram on computer

Extract Data

Inspect Data

Data overview on data donation platform

Data donation

🤔 You might have already requested and downloaded your data in preparation for today. Did you encounter any difficulties in requesting and downloading your data?
We will dive into the content of your data a bit later.

🤔 Questions?

References

Hase, Valerie, Jef Ausloos, Laura Boeschoten, Nico Pfiffner, Heleen Janssen, Theo Araujo, Thijs Carrière, et al. 2024. “Fulfilling Data Access Obligations: How Could (and Should) Platforms Facilitate Data Donation Studies?” Internet Policy Review 13 (3). https://doi.org/10.14763/2024.3.1793.
Ohme, Jakob, Theo Araujo, Laura Boeschoten, Deen Freelon, Nilam Ram, Byron B. Reeves, and Thomas N. Robinson. 2024. “Digital Trace Data Collection for Social Media Effects Research: APIs, Data Donation, and (Screen) Tracking.” Communication Methods and Measures 18 (2): 124–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/19312458.2023.2181319.