Privacy and rationality in individual decision making

Traditional theory suggests consumers should be able to manage their privacy. Yet, empirical and theoretical research suggests that consumers often lack enough information to make privacy-sensitive decisions and, even with sufficient information, are likely to trade off long-term privacy for short-term benefits     

Understanding consumers’ continuance intention towards mobile purchase: A theoretical framework and empirical study – A case of China

Although mobile purchase is convenient in the age of mobile commerce, many consumers still do not utilize mobile purchase to its full potential. From the mobile vendor’s perspective, retaining current customers and facilitating their continued purchase are crucial to create profitability and achieve a sustainable development. An understanding of the continuance intention towards mobile purchase can provide insights into mobile vendors’ marketing campaigns. Therefore, it is important to examine the determinants that impact continuance intentions of consumers for mobile purchase. Drawing upon information success model, flow theory and trust, this study proposed and empirically tested an integrated model to better understand the determinants of consumers’ continued intention to purchase on mobile sites. Empirical data from 462 users who had experience with mobile purchase were tested against the proposed research model by using structural equation modelling (SEM). The results indicated that information quality, and privacy and security concerns are the main factors affecting trust, whereas service quality is the main factor affecting flow. System quality, and privacy and security concerns affect satisfaction. Trust affects flow, which in turn affects satisfaction. These three factors together affect continued intention towards mobile purchase. The findings of this study provide several important implications for mobile commerce research and practice.     

Information disclosure on mobile devices: Re-examining privacy calculus with actual user behavior

The use of mobile applications continues to experience exponential growth. Using mobile apps typically requires the disclosure of location data, which often accompanies requests for various other forms of private information. Existing research on information privacy has implied that consumers are willing to accept privacy risks for relatively negligible benefits, and the offerings of mobile apps based on location-based services (LBS) appear to be no different. However, until now, researchers have struggled to replicate realistic privacy risks within experimental methodologies designed to manipulate independent variables. Moreover, minimal research has successfully captured actual information disclosure over mobile devices based on realistic risk perceptions. The purpose of this study is to propose and test a more realistic experimental methodology designed to replicate real perceptions of privacy risk and capture the effects of actual information disclosure decisions. As with prior research, this study employs a theoretical lens based on privacy calculus. However, we draw more detailed and valid conclusions due to our use of improved methodological rigor. We report the results of a controlled experiment involving consumers (n=1025) in a range of ages, levels of education, and employment experience. Based on our methodology, we find that only a weak, albeit significant, relationship exists between information disclosure intentions and actual disclosure. In addition, this relationship is heavily moderated by the consumer practice of disclosing false data. We conclude by discussing the contributions of our methodology and the possibilities for extending it for additional mobile privacy research.     

Privacy concern and online personalization: The moderating effects of information control and compensation

Firms have at their disposal an increasing amount of personal information about consumers gathered through various means. Studies find that personalizing online interactions improves customer relationships and increases desirable behaviors, such as positive word-of-mouth and increased purchase intent. However, other research suggests that the use of personal information stimulates privacy concern, which has a negative effect on behavior. This study examines potential moderators of the negative effects of privacy concern on behavioral intentions in the context of personalized online interactions. Results show that increasing perceived information control reduces the negative effect of privacy concern on intentions to engage in positive behaviors. In contrast, the offer of compensation has no effect on the relationship between privacy concern and these behavioral intentions. However, compensation increases the salience of trust to privacy concern.     

Online information privacy and price: A theoretical model and empirical tests

Information privacy has become an increasingly critical concern for many individuals, especially in the context of the increased collection, analysis, and visualization of personal information. Despite the importance of privacy in online transactions, most studies investigated the effects of privacy concerns on stated intentions. This study theoretically analyzes and empirically evaluates the link between privacy and price. In the proposed model, consumers are differentiated not only by their preferences for privacy but also by search costs. For simplicity, stores in the proposed model differ in terms of the price charged and the privacy protection level offered. As derived from the theoretical model and empirical validation, better privacy protection does not necessarily lead to the highest price, though it does allow stores to charge a premium price. Moreover, the price premium is higher if more consumers remain uninformed, indicating that uninformed consumers exert negative impacts on informed consumers.     

The disclosure of private data: measuring the privacy paradox in digital services

Privacy is a current topic in the context of digital services because such services demand mass volumes of consumer data. Although most consumers are aware of their personal privacy, they frequently do not behave rationally in terms of the risk-benefit trade-off. This phenomenon is known as the privacy paradox. It is a common limitation in research papers examining consumers’ privacy intentions. Using a design science approach, we develop a metric that determines the extent of consumers’ privacy paradox in digital services based on the theoretical construct of the privacy calculus. We demonstrate a practical application of the metric for mobile apps. With that, we contribute to validating respective research findings. Moreover, among others, consumers and companies can be prevented from unwanted consequences regarding data privacy issues and service market places can provide privacy-customized suggestions.     

电子商务中消费者隐私保护问题研究

随着精准化营销和个性化服务的广泛使用,一些市场主体越来越注重对消费者的了解,他们在利益驱使下,在 网上消费者不知情或不情愿的情况下采取各种技术手段获得和利用其信息,侵犯了消费者的隐私权。尽管消费者可以因此享 受到更加便利和个性化的产品与服务,但是他们对个人隐私的保护问题也日益关注。本文对电子商务中消费者的隐私权进行 概述,并总结了电子商务中消费者信息收集的常见途径,最后对基于隐私保护的数据挖掘技术与常见算法进行综述。     

Trustworthiness in electronic commerce: the role of privacy, security, and site attributes

While the growth of business-to-consumer electronic commerce seems phenomenal in recent years, several studies suggest that a large number of individuals using the Internet have serious privacy concerns, and that winning public trust is the primary hurdle to continued growth in e-commerce. This research investigated the relative importance, when purchasing goods and services over the Web, of four common trust indices (i.e. (1) third party privacy seals, (2) privacy statements, (3) third party security seals, and (4) security features). The results indicate consumers valued security features significantly more than the three other trust indices. We also investigated the relationship between these trust indices and the consumer's perceptions of a marketer's trustworthiness. The findings indicate that consumers' ratings of trustworthiness of Web merchants did not parallel experts' evaluation of sites' use of the trust indices. This study also examined the extent to which consumers are willing to provide private information to electronic and land merchants. The results revealed that when making the decision to provide private information, consumers rely on their perceptions of trustworthiness irrespective of whether the merchant is electronic only or land and electronic. Finally, we investigated the relative importance of three types of Web attributes: security, privacy and pleasure features (convenience, ease of use, cosmetics). Privacy and security features were of lesser importance than pleasure features when considering consumers' intention to purchase. A discussion of the implications of these results and an agenda for future research are provided.     

The Impact of Online Training on Facebook Privacy

Facebook is a major part of the lives of many consumers who share a considerable amount of information with friends, acquaintances, and commercial interests via the platform, leading to greater exposure to privacy risks. Training has been shown to be effective in reducing computer risk in a variety of contexts. This study investigates the effectiveness of training on consumer attitudes and behavioral intentions toward Facebook privacy risk. The study highlights the importance of training consumers on how and why they need to protect their privacy. Findings suggest that training can reduce consumer risk, but effectiveness can vary across types of training. For example, Facebook’s Privacy Tour was less effective than third-party training videos in improving consumer vigilance. Implications of the findings for consumers and privacy advocates are discussed.     

Perceived quality factors of location-based apps on trust,perceived privacy risk,and continuous usage intention

Numerous location-based services (LBS) studies have suggested that the risk of disclosing personal privacy hinders consumers from adopting LBS, whereas scant attention has focused on clarifying how to mitigate the perceived privacy risk of using LBS. This quantitative study focuses on the effects of consumer quality perceptions (i.e. information quality, system quality, and service quality) on their trust in LBS, which consequently affects perceived privacy risk and continued usage intention towards LBS. Research data were collected through a market survey website; 1399 valid questionnaires were collected. Structural equation modelling analysis was applied to the data. The results revealed that information quality, system quality, and service quality were positively related to perceived trust. Perceived trust also correlated negatively with perceived privacy risk, but positively with continued usage intention. A managerial implication drawn from the findings is that LBS providers should develop more useful user interfaces or provide timely, personalised services to reduce perceived privacy risk and strengthen LBS continued usage intention.     

The role of affect and cognition on online consumers' decision to disclose personal information to unfamiliar online vendors

Based on the privacy calculus framework and the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model, this study examines online information disclosure decision as a result of affective and cognitive reactions of online consumers over several stages, i.e. an initial stage where an overall impression is formed about an unfamiliar online vendor, and a subsequent information exchange stage where information necessary to complete the ecommerce transaction will be provided to the online vendor. We found that, initial emotions formed from an overall impression of a Web site act as initial hurdles to information disclosure. Once online consumers enter the information exchange stage, fairness-based levers further adjust privacy beliefs.     

Communication Privacy Management in Electronic Commerce

This study applies Petronio's Communication Privacy Management theory (CPM) to understand the tension between information disclosure and privacy within e-commerce relationships. It proposes that consumers manage their privacy concerns through decisions to reveal or conceal information about themselves in interactions with online retailers. The study investigates the degree to which privacy management strategies identified by CPM theory to regulate privacy and disclosure within interpersonal relationships, including withholding and falsifying information, as well as seeking information seeking from a relational partner, operate in the computer-mediated context of e-commerce relational transactions. Findings suggest that online consumers do erect boundaries around personal information and form rules to decide when to reveal information that are consistent with CPM theory. Overall, this study provides knowledge about privacy in online commercial transactions, serves as a basis for more directed theory construction in this arena, and has important practical and policy implications.     

Consumers’ Perceptions of Using Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) for Research Purposes

Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) help various organizations to use aggregated clinical data for research purposes. Consumers may concern that private companies could access their personal information and such information could be misused for other purposes. This study attempts to extend the application of privacy calculus theory in the HIE domain by developing a model centered on the perceived benefits, perceived risks, their dimensions and antecedents to predict consumers’ opt-in intention toward HIE use for research purposes.     

Personalization versus Privacy: An Empirical Examination of the Online Consumer’s Dilemma

Personalization refers to the tailoring of products and purchase experience to the tastes of individual consumers based upon their personal and preference information. Recent advances in information acquisition and processing technologies have allowed online vendors to offer varieties of web-based personalization that not only increases switching costs, but also serves as important means of acquiring valuable customer information. However, investments in online personalization may be severely undermined if consumers do not use these services due to privacy concerns. In the absence of any empirical evidence that seeks to understand this consumer dilemma, our research develops a parsimonious model to predict consumers usage of online personalization as a result of the tradeoff between their value for personalization and concern for privacy. In addition to this tradeoff, we find that a consumers intent to use personalization services is positively influenced by her trust in the vendor. Our findings suggest that: 1. online vendors can improve their abilities to acquire and use customer information through trust building activities; 2. it is of critical importance that vendors understand and evaluate the different values consumers may place in enjoying various types of personalization.     

The key role of relevance in personalized advertisement: Examining its impact on perceptions of privacy invasion,self-awareness,and continuous use intentions

Internet advertising has become increasingly personalized as advertisers tailor content to individual users. However, this has led consumers to be concerned about their privacy. Based on rational choice theory and self-awareness theory, the current research explores the role of relevance in personalized advertisements and examines its impact on perceptions of privacy invasion, self-awareness, and subsequent continuous use intentions of personalized advertising. Analysis of survey data from 386 online users found that although privacy invasion perceptions are negatively related to continuous use intentions, perceived advertisement relevance mitigates consumer's privacy concerns. Perceived relevance was also found to be positively related to consumer's continuous use intentions through the mediation of self-awareness. This research identifies and highlights the importance of relevance in the tension between privacy concerns and personalized advertisements.     

Examining the case of French hesitancy toward IDaaS solutions: Technical and social contextual factors of the organizational IDaaS privacy calculus

Identity-as-a-service (IDaaS) is a cloud security service to which companies can outsource the identity and access management (IAM) functions that administer their employee's access to organizational resources. Engaging with the information systems (IS) privacy literature, our qualitative analysis develops a framework for an organizational privacy calculus that informs French organizational consumers’ decisions to pursue IDaaS solutions. We collect data from employees of a multinational IDaaS provider operating in Europe but headquartered in the US. Our case study reveals the organizational privacy calculus associated with transferring control of a primary security control to a multinational cloud service provider.     

Antecedents and outcomes of information privacy concerns in a peer context: An exploratory study

Academic studies typically view privacy threats as originating solely from organizations. With the rise of social media, such a view is incomplete because consumers increasingly face risks from peers’ misuse of data. In this paper, we study information privacy in the context of peer relationships on commercial social media sites. We develop a model that considers relationships between the constructs of privacy experiences, privacy awareness, trust, risk, and benefits and how those relationships impact individuals’ disclosure behaviors. We test the model by creating a survey that includes a number of measures that were taken directly from or were closely based on measures from prior studies. We conduct seven pilot tests of undergraduate students in order to validate the survey items. Working with the online survey firm Qualtrics, we gather a dataset of 314 Facebook users’ responses to our validated survey, and we test our model using partial least squares techniques. We find that both privacy experiences and privacy awareness are quite significant predictors of privacy concerns. We also find that trust, risk, benefits, and privacy concerns work together to explain a large amount (37%) of the variance in disclosure behaviors. We discuss implications for practice and for future research.     

Privacy policies and national culture on the internet

The Web today enables consumers and vendors to conduct business almost without regard to physical location. However, this does not mean that all barriers are removed; culturally-based assumptions about the behavior of the other party can lead to major misunderstandings. We study the differences in privacy-sensitive decisions made by website operators (which can be expected to vary between cultures) as one particular example of these differing assumptions. In particular, we seek to understand whether new norms of behavior may be emerging as online vendors recognize the damage privacy invasions do to consumers’ trust. We present a large-scale empirical study of privacy-sensitive actions across cultures on the Internet. Our study is based on an automated analysis of P3P documents posted on the 100,000 most popular websites. We find that the adoption of P3P, as well as specific company policies, vary across cultural dimensions. The analysis also suggests that discrepancies exist between concerns for information privacy and the adoption of privacy enhancing technologies within a culture.     

Personalization–privacy paradox and consumer conflict with the use of location-based mobile commerce

This study empirically explored consumers’ response to the personalization–privacy paradox arising from the use of location-based mobile commerce (LBMC) and investigated the factors affecting consumers’ psychological and behavioral reactions to the paradox. A self-administered online consumer survey was conducted using a South Korean sample comprising those with experience using LBMC, and data from 517 respondents were analyzed. Using cluster analysis, consumers were categorized into four groups according to their responses regarding perceived personalization benefits and privacy risks: indifferent (n = 87), personalization oriented (n = 113), privacy oriented (n = 152), and ambivalent (n = 165). The results revealed significant differences across consumer groups in the antecedents and outcomes of the personalization–privacy paradox. Multiple regression analysis showed that factors influence the two outcome variables of the personalization–privacy paradox: internal conflict (psychological outcome) and continued use intention of LBMC (behavioral outcome). In conclusion, this study showed that consumer involvement, self-efficacy, and technology optimism significantly affected both outcome variables, whereas technology insecurity influenced internal conflict, and consumer trust influenced continued use intention. This study contributes to the current literature and provides practical implications for marketers and retailers aiming to succeed in the mobile commerce environment.     

Mobile advertising avoidance: exploring the role of ubiquity

Drawing upon prior research on Internet information privacy concerns, this study examines the effects of perceived ubiquity on consumers?? acceptance of mobile advertising. We postulate that, due to increasing unethical information practice, ubiquity can be perceived both positively and negatively, exercising complex effects on trust, risk, attitude, and intention to delete the ad. With 510 Japanese general consumers, our findings indicate that perceived ubiquity significantly strengthens trust and attitude toward the ad, while none of the negative effects are confirmed. Perceived ubiquity is therefore generally accepted as a favorable utility of mobile communication, leading to more likely acceptance of the ad it delivers. In closing, theoretical and managerial implications are discussed, and important limitations are recognized.