The number of active users of digital maps and navigation applications has exceeded a billion worldwide. As these apps are predominantly free of charge, their contribution to consumer well-being cannot be measured using common economic indicators, like GDP. The present study measures, in an economically consistent way, consumer surplus from a navigation service. The preferences for the navigation service and two optional location-based functionalities: traffic information and commercial information are elicited in a discrete choice experiment. In the experiment, respondents are confronted with a range of location-sharing arrangements set by a navigation provider of varying intrusiveness regarding privacy. Median consumer surplus from using satellite-only navigation without location-based functionalities is estimated at EUR 8.06 per month. Adding location-based services increases this gain by 36% to EUR 10.98, provided that data sharing is arranged on non-intrusive, user-centric terms. Both location-sharing conditions set by providers and privacy concerns of users affect the surplus size gained from using free navigation applications.

全球数字地图和导航应用程序的活跃用户数量已超过 10 亿。由于这些应用程序主要是免费的，因此无法使用 GDP 等通用经济指标来衡量它们对消费者福祉的贡献。本研究以经济上一致的方式衡量导航服务的消费者剩余。导航服务的偏好和两个可选的基于位置的功能：交通信息和商业信息是在离散选择实验中引出的。在实验中，受访者面临着由导航提供商设置的一系列位置共享安排，这些安排对隐私的侵入程度各不相同。使用没有基于位置的功能的纯卫星导航的消费者盈余中位数估计为每月 8.06 欧元。如果数据共享是按照非侵入性的、以用户为中心的条款进行安排的，那么添加基于位置的服务会使这一收益增加 36%，达到 10.98 欧元。提供商设置的位置共享条件和用户的隐私问题都会影响从使用免费导航应用程序中获得的剩余大小。