App Users Unwittingly in the Spotlight: A Model of Privacy Protection in Mobile Apps

Mobile apps are increasingly jeopardizing app users' online privacy by collecting, storing, and sharing personal data disclosed via apps. However, little is known about mobile app users' current privacy protection behavior and the factors that motivate it. Drawing on Roger's Protection Motivation Theory (PMT), this study develops and tests the App Privacy Protection Model among 1,593 Western European app users. The results demonstrate that, on the one hand, increased levels of perceived self‐efficacy, vulnerability, and privacy concern enhance mobile app users' motivation to engage in risk‐reducing behavior, while on the other hand, higher levels of knowledge of the data collection practices of mobile apps, app attitude, and perceived response costs diminish it. Being the first study that applies PMT in the mobile app context, this study offers several important implications regarding privacy protection in mobile apps.     

Why we watch others' responses to online advertising – investigating users' motivations for viewing user-generated content in the context of online advertising

The study investigates Internet users' motivations for viewing user-generated content (UGC) in the context of online advertising. In addition, it is examined whether individual motivation patterns can be traced back to users' personalities and their attitudes toward advertising in general. An online survey of 181 social media users was conducted, surveying users' motivation, personality (big five), and attitude toward advertising in general. Path analysis was employed to examine the research model. The use of UGC was motivated by needs for information, entertainment, personal identity, and social interaction. While personality did not predict users' motives, their attitudes towards advertising in general explained individual motivation patterns to a large extent. It was consequently proposed and confirmed that users' motives mediate the influence of recipients' general attitude toward advertising on UGC usage. Results indicated a strong effective potential for UGC in online advertising: users view such content expressly to be influenced by others fulfilling their needs for information, personal identity and social interaction. Firms may lose some of their ability to precisely control brand messages when advertising in social media.     

Can information and communication overload influence smartphone app users' social network exhaustion,privacy invasion and discontinuance intention? A cognition-affect-conation approach

Thanks to the expansion of network technologies and the coupling of smartphone hardware, younger generations have unparalleled access to a diverse range of information and interactive communication opportunities. Despite voluminous research on the causes of social network exhaustion and privacy invasion, limited academic attention has been devoted to understanding the driving forces and contributing factors for discontinuing usage of smartphone app. Drawing on the cognition-affect-conation paradigm, the present research proposes a conceptual research model to examine how information overload and communication overload effect social network exhaustion, privacy invasion, and ultimately, smartphone app users' intentions to discontinue usage. The study evaluates data from 442 smartphone app users, employing statistical analyses to demonstrate that both information overload and communication overload significantly impact users' exhaustion and privacy invasion. Additionally, social network exhaustion and privacy invasion are two major predictors of smartphone app discontinuance intention. By identifying the influential factors and causes of younger generations' discontinuous usage intention of smartphone app, this study meets the need for a thorough assessment of the social network exhaustion and privacy invasion phenomena. The findings may potentially enhance comprehension of the discontinuation intention phenomenon in the context of cognitive overload. Furthermore, they may provide novel insights for practitioners regarding effective strategies conducive to managing mobile social network adoption behavior, as well as the preservation of engagement levels among young users in mobile-saturated societies.     

What drives content creation behavior on SNSs? A commitment perspective

We investigate the mind-sets driving users' content creation behavior on social network sites (SNSs) and antecedents of these mind-sets. The results of our survey of 1242 Renren users in China indicated that affective and continuance commitments are the main drivers of users' content creation behaviors on SNSs, while normative commitment has little influence on content creation behaviors. Further, informational support and emotional support from the social support perspective, reputational capital and relational capital from the sunk cost theory, subjective norm and perceived critical mass from the social influence perspective perform well as antecedents of affective, continuance, and normative commitment, respectively.     

Understanding information disclosures and privacy sensitivity on short-form video platforms: An empirical investigation

As a new social media platform, short-form video apps integrate the dual functions of e-commerce and social networking. The proliferation and high penetration rate of this kind of app have resulted in online user concerns about the privacy security problems exposed by such platforms. This study focuses on better understanding the impact mechanism of private information disclosure behaviors and obtained benefits on privacy concerns of short-form video platform users. We analyzed the behavioral and privacy setting data of 35,456 users registered on the TikTok platform. The results demonstrated a correlation between use behaviors (e.g., participation and interest) and privacy sensitivity, among which popularity, as a form of external feedback, played a mediating role. In addition, the official certification provided to users by the platform moderated the impact of user popularity on privacy sensitivity. This study enriches the understanding of the correlation between privacy concerns and information disclosure behavior and suggests practical implications for the design of privacy settings and protections by short-form video platforms.     

What type of purchase do you prefer to share on social networking sites: Experiential or material?

Social networking sites (SNSs) have greatly changed individual lifestyles and the means of sharing information. They encourage users to participate in sharing activities and have led to a boost in user-generated content. To gain a deep insight into users' information sharing behaviors on SNSs, this study investigates what type of purchase (material or experiential) users prefer to share on SNSs. Three experiments were conducted, and the results revealed that experiential purchases were more likely to be shared through SNSs than were material ones. This disparity stemmed from the users' perceived social approval of the purchase. Additionally, the users' self-monitoring moderated the impact of the purchase type on the sharing intention. Together, our findings help to explain users’ information-sharing behaviors on SNSs and enrich the research on purchase-type comparisons. Further, the results provide practitioners with proper marketing strategies based on the product type.     

How attachment affects user stickiness on live streaming platforms: A socio-technical approach perspective

User stickiness is an important factor in the development of live streaming shopping platforms, which describes the degree of users' attention to the platforms. Although some e-commerce websites have provided live streaming services to improve the purchase experience of consumers, few people know how the services affect user stickiness. Building upon attachment theory and socio-technical approach, we developed a theoretical model to understand how live streaming service affects the user stickiness through users' attachment, which is tested by using 425 live streaming shopping platform's users. The results showed that technical factors (synchronicity and vicarious expression) and social factors (interaction and identification) positively affect emotional attachment to streamers and platform attachment respectively, which in turn increase the user stickiness.     

Impact of personalization and privacy concerns on information disclosure and pricing

Advances in IT have enabled some firms to offer personalized products according to the private information disclosed by consumers, while others are still offering standardized products, which brings about asymmetric competition. For consumers, disclosing private information for personalized products leads to reduced misfit cost as well as privacy loss. To illuminate the impact of consumers' trade-off between the benefit of information disclosure and the associated privacy concerns on firms' asymmetric price competition, we consider a setting where only one firm is capable of product personalization based on consumers' personal information. The capable firm makes a profit from selling the product and monetizing consumers' information. We demonstrate that as the capable firm becomes more adept at personalization, he may raise or lower the price depending on his profit foci, and an improvement in his capability does not always guarantee a higher profit. Counterintuitively, an increase in the unit misfit cost (i.e., greater product differentiation) can, under certain circumstances, intensity price competition, making both firms worse off and leading to higher consumer surplus. We also show that when consumers are more privacy-concerned, there exists an indirect effect that weakens the impact of an increase in price on the monetization of consumers’ information, and hence price competition can be mitigated and both firms can be better off. Furthermore, we demonstrate that product personalization with misfit-reducing effect always increases consumer surplus under the asymmetric competition. Our findings provide firms and policy-makers with great managerial insights.     

Public partnerships,governance and user involvement: a service user perspective

This paper explores public partnerships and governance from a service user perspective, drawing both on the author's own involvement in service user organizations and movements and on material associated with and produced by these organizations and movements. It addresses the ambivalent relationship between service user organizations and movements and the idea and practice of ‘partnerships’, and explores their preference for ideas of ‘alliance’. It charts the different approaches to and ideologies underpinning user involvement and their implications for partnership between state and service users and their organizations. It offers a set of components for improving such partnerships as well as highlighting the growing interest of service users' organizations and movements in developing and extending alliances.     

The Privacy Paradox: Personal Information Disclosure Intentions versus Behaviors

Impelled by the development of technologies that facilitate collection, distribution, storage, and manipulation of personal consumer information, privacy has become a “hot” topic for policy makers. Commercial interests seek to maximize and then leverage the value of consumer information, while, at the same time, consumers voice concerns that their rights and ability to control their personal information in the marketplace are being violated. However, despite the complaints, it appears that consumers freely provide personal data. This research explores what we call the “privacy paradox” or the relationship between individuals’ intentions to disclose personal information and their actual personal information disclosure behaviors.     

Hedonic consumption experience in videogaming: A multidimensional perspective

Prior research primarily considers consumers' hedonic gaming experience, defined as an individual's level of pleasure, emotional gratification, and enjoyment from playing a videogame, from a unidimensional perspective. However, given the growing range of technology-enabled, hedonic game-related (e.g., aesthetic, competition, or social) elements, we argue that this one-dimensional view is rapidly becoming dated. Correspondingly, we propose a broadened multi-dimensional perspective of videogamers' hedonic experience, as informed by hedonic consumption theory and the theory of planned behavior. Using a sample of 294 gamers, our results confirm the existence of gamers' multi (i.e., seven)-dimensional hedonic consumption experience comprising escapism, fantasy, role-projection, emotional involvement, enjoyment, arousal, and sensory experience. We also find that gamers' emotional involvement, enjoyment, arousal, and sensory experience, in particular, drive their attitude formation toward a videogame, in turn impacting users' videogaming intent and behavior. We conclude by discussing implications that arise from our research.     

Self-Disclosure and Managing Privacy: Implications for Interpersonal and Online Communication for Consumers and Marketers

In our fast-changing technological world, the line between the offline and online world has become blurred and individuals are faced with constant opportunities to divulge personal details. The process of disclosing sensitive information to others is necessary for establishing, maintaining, and building relationships, both with people and businesses; however, it also creates opportunities for misuse of the disclosed information. Consumers who are willing to disclose personal information online may often be unaware of the full implications of such disclosure. By thoroughly exploring the origins and processes of self-disclosure, and outlining its development in interpersonal and online communication, individuals will become more aware of their (sometimes competing) implicit and explicit disclosure behaviors necessary for enacting strong privacy management. Utilizing communication privacy management (CPM) theory, this article proposes a framework for ongoing consideration of how self-disclosure and privacy function online. By framing privacy in terms of the literature of communicative self-disclosure, CPM instructs the building of privacy boundaries that are functional for consumers and marketers alike, allowing people to protect themselves online while also ensuring their continued enjoyment of Internet provided benefits.     

To Share and Protect: Using Regulatory Focus Theory to Examine the Privacy Paradox of Consumers' Social Media Engagement and Online Privacy Protection Behaviors

Consumers' personal information often informs retailers' marketing efforts in terms of creating value in the online marketplace. This study examines four factors related to consumers' social media engagement and online privacy protection behaviors. Regulatory focus, social exchange, and marketing relationship theories explain the online consumer personal information share-and-protect model developed. Consumers aged 18–64 years across the United States participated in this survey research. The results suggest that while personal privacy violation experience and perceived secondary control of one's personal information are influential antecedents, privacy concerns and trust in social media websites mediate each of these respectively. The findings suggest that promotion- and prevention-related behaviors regarding personal information align with the orientation of the antecedents, indicating that regulatory focus theory shows promise for examining the privacy paradox. We conclude by developing a matrix that integrates regulatory focus and social exchange theories to guide future research.     

Antecedents of mobile payment loyalty: An extended perspective of perceived value and information system success model

Drawing on the information system success model and perceived value theory, we develop a research model to examine factors that may affect user satisfaction and loyalty of mobile payment platforms. Empirical data was collected from users using Alipay and WeChat Pay in China, and a total of 410 valid responses were gathered for data analysis. The results show that the multi-dimensional formative perceived value including benefits and sacrifice is important determinant of mobile payment user satisfaction and loyalty. The three benefit dimensions of functional value, experiential value and social value are more important value components than the two sacrifice dimensions of risk and cost, and experiential value is the dominant component of mobile payment users' value perception. As for the antecedents of perceived value, system quality and service quality mainly affect perceived benefits, while information quality has a greater impact on risk. The research results provide the contribution of specific value dimensions to users' perceived value and the impact of quality characteristics on specific perceived value for mobile payment platform providers, thus helping them to adopt effective strategies to strengthen market competitiveness and retain existing users.     

Privacy Notice for Dummies? Towards European Guidelines on How to Give “Clear and Comprehensive Information” on the Cookies’ Use in Order to Protect the Internet Users’ Right to Online Privacy

The reviewed ePrivacy Directive aims at ensuring internet users’ online privacy by requiring users to give informed consent to the gathering, storing, and processing of their data by internet service providers, e.g., through the cookies’ use. However, it is hardly possible to talk about an “informed” consent if internet users are not aware of cookies or do not understand when and how they work. Currently, European rules require internet service providers to provide internet users with a “clear and comprehensive” information on the cookies’ use without further specifying what kind of disclosure would be seen as compliant therewith. This paper assesses the need for harmonized European guidelines on transparent and readable disclosure on the cookies’ use and suggests the way forward based on comparative legal research and findings from consumer behaviour research.     

Key quality factors affecting users' perception of social networking websites

PurposeThe main aim of the present study is to evaluate the quality factors of websites and their effect on users' perceptions about quality in the context of social networking websites.Design/methodology/approachThis is an applied study conducted as a field survey. A conceptual framework of website quality is proposed and empirically tested that combines quality factors and users' overall perception about quality. Based upon conceptual frameworks in the areas of information systems and using responses from 300 users, a seven factors scale has been validated and data were used to test the conceptual model. To test validity of conceptual framework, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted and regression analysis was performed to examine the suggested hypotheses in the conceptual framework.FindingsIn this study, six different significant factors namely efficiency, entertainment, community drivenness, privacy, user friendliness, efficiency and navigability were identified to be significant for the service quality of social networking websites. Using the survey conducted in the statistical sample, only the factor of web appearance was identified as less important for social networking website users.Practical implicationsFindings from this research provide a set of essential and desired quality factors that social networking website developers can use to improve the quality of existing websites in turn increasing its numbers of users, thus bringing benefits to the company. Second, this study shows how perceived quality has a direct and profound effect on the degree of consumer perception about website quality.Originality/valueThis study, expanding a conceptual model, tries to identify the set of service quality factors for social networking websites. The information of these quality factors as a major predictor of consumers' quality perception provides social networking websites management an initial point for making successful quality management practices for their e-commerce.     

An agentic perspective of resourcefulness: Self-reliant and joint resourcefulness behaviors within the entrepreneurship process

We integrate social cognitive theory, and its tenets of personal and collective agency, to develop an individual-level perspective on entrepreneurs' resourcefulness behaviors that illustrates how resourcefulness behaviors can be classified as ‘self-reliant behaviors’ or ‘joint resourcefulness behaviors’. Using this novel cognitive theoretical approach, we provide and test a framework that explains how dispositional, perceptual, and behavioral factors interact in the enactment of purposeful action with regards to entrepreneurs' resourceful behaviors. Consistent with our hypotheses, results from a quantitative study of entrepreneurs (N = 178), as well as a supplemental study involving qualitative interviews with entrepreneurs (N = 15), highlight that entrepreneurs higher in frugality tend to perceive higher levels of environmental hostility. This relationship, in turn, leads to higher amounts of self-reliant resourcefulness behaviors (i.e., customer-related and internal self-financing bootstrapping behaviors) but not joint resourcefulness behaviors. Multiple theoretical and practical contributions emerge from our findings as the extant literature does not yet account for human agency as a reason why some entrepreneurs may choose to engage in certain resourceful behaviors relative to other behaviors.     

An investigation of gender differences in on-line privacy concerns and resultant behaviors

This study examines whether gender differences are apparent in attitudes and behaviors toward advertising and marketing practices involving information gathering and privacy on-line. As part of a larger study, 889 internet users nationwide were surveyed using electronic mail. Results indicated that women and men differed significantly in their attitudes toward several practices, with women generally appearing more concerned about the effect the practice would have on their personal privacy. Additionally, the study found that men were likely to adopt behaviors to protect their privacy when they became concerned; women, however, rarely adopted protective behaviors. Implications for web advertisers are provided.     

Beyond concern: socio-demographic and attitudinal influences on privacy and disclosure choices

ABSTRACT

The co-option of consumers as unwilling agents in their own surveillance has enabled significant abuses of consumer privacy. Previous studies have largely used privacy concern as a proxy for overall privacy attitudes. In this study, we implement a choice experiment in combination with measures adapted from Communication Privacy Management theory to enable a broader exploration of the influences of privacy attitudes by contextualising privacy as a negotiation about accessibility over contextual boundaries. Key findings suggest individuals’ social media disclosure decisions are influenced at least in part by their privacy attitudes, particularly with respect to information categories which may cue other personal information. Findings are also presented on consumers’ willingness to pay for privacy, with implications for alternative revenue streams not built on consumer surveillance.