Your Privacy Is Sealed: Effects of Web Privacy Seals on Trust and Personal Disclosures

Online privacy is an issue of increasing national importance, and voluntary privacy seals provided by third‐party organizations such as TRUSTe and BBBOnline have been proposed as a means of assuring consumer privacy. Few studies have examined privacy seal effects. This study presents results of an online experiment that evaluated consumer response to privacy seals in a naturalistic exposure setting. Findings suggest that privacy seals enhance trust in the Web site and expectations that the site would inform the user of its information practices. While concern for privacy‐threatening information practices had no influence, privacy self‐efficacy, confidence in ability to protect one's privacy, moderated seal effects. Implications for the continued role of privacy seals are discussed.     

Consumer Perceptions of Privacy and Security Risks for Online Shopping

Government and industry organizations have declared information privacy and security to be major obstacles in the development of consumer‐related e‐commerce. Risk perceptions regarding Internet privacy and security have been identified as issues for both new and experienced users of Internet technology. This paper explores risk perceptions among consumers of varying levels of Internet experience and how these perceptions relate to online shopping activity. Findings provide evidence of hypothesized relationships among consumers’ levels of Internet experience, the use of alternate remote purchasing methods (such as telephone and mail‐order shopping), the perceived risks of online shopping, and online purchasing activity. Implications for online commerce and consumer welfare are discussed.     

Information Sensitivity Typology: Mapping the Degree and Type of Risk Consumers Perceive in Personal Data Sharing

Surveys show significant public concern regarding information privacy. To better understand how consumer concerns vary by type of personal data, the authors created a typology of information types based on perceived associated risks. In a national consumer survey, 52 information types were analyzed along four perceived risk categories (physical, psychological, monetary, and social), consumers' overall sensitivity regarding the information, and their willingness to provide it. This resulted in six highly distinctive clusters—Basic Demographics, Personal Preferences, Contact Information, Community Interaction, Financial Information, and Secure Identifiers—organized around similarities in perceived risk profile. Additionally, consumer segmentation analysis shows rank order of cluster risk perceptions to be stable, even when perceived magnitude and overall risk propensities change by segment. This research advances the conversation from an outdated PII/non‐PII framework to a more meaningful, consumer‐based understanding of the perceived risks associated with different types of personal information.     

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.     

Information Privacy and Online Behaviors

Abstract

This study explores several key potential influences of privacy concerns on consumers' attitudes toward websites. Using a sample of 221 subjects, it was found that privacy concerns could decrease the likelihood of purchasing online. This finding highlights the importance of privacy concerns and contributes to the understanding of Internet marketing in that the early literature incompletely addresses the issue of consumer privacy empirically, which represents a potential threat to the growth of e-commerce. Thus, online marketers should be careful not to abuse (e.g., distribute it without permission) the personal information of consumers. In sum, it is advised that online marketers assure the public that consumer information will not be tracked and traded without the individual consumer's knowledge or consent.     

Shopping for Privacy on the Internet

Privacy is a concern for all major stakeholders in modern society, and technology to erode privacy continually emerges. Studies show that individuals are concerned about database privacy; yet, they seldom make privacy a salient attribute when deciding among competing alternatives. Although privacy policies are present on many Web sites, Web users rarely bother to read them. Professor Nehf explores why this is so, identifying rational reasons why Web users do not shop for privacy and discussing the implications for the expanding market for consumer information. Unless privacy becomes a salient attribute influencing consumer choice, Web site operators will continue to obtain and use more personal information than Web users would choose to provide in a more transparent exchange. In a responding commentary, Professors Pitt and Watson use an ecosystem approach that explores the multiple dimensions of privacy. Investigating the interactions between the three major players—citizen/consumer/investor, government, and corporation—they identify reasons for the failure of market mechanisms to arise to protect privacy.     

Internet Seals of Approval: Effects on Online Privacy Policies and Consumer Perceptions

The use of Internet seal of approval programs has been touted as an alternative to potential legislation concerning consumer-related online privacy practices. Questions have been raised, however, regarding the effectiveness of such programs with respect to maintaining privacy standards and aiding online consumers. The authors examine these issues in a series of three studies, the first of which is an exploratory application of Federal Trade Commission privacy standards to various online privacy policies in an effort to determine the ability of seal of approval program participation to act as a valid cue to a firm's stated privacy practices. The second and third studies are experiments designed to ascertain how online firm participation in Internet seal of approval programs affects consumers. Implications for consumer policy are discussed.     

The Future of Privacy: A Consumer‐Oriented Approach to Managing Personal Data Online

Beginning with Facebook's recent controversial “tweaks” to its privacy policy and its promise to support users against employers and others who attempt to compel users to divulge passwords, we critically review European Union (EU) and US digital privacy initiatives. Whereas the EU proposal relies on legislative regulation, the United States proposes industry self‐regulation partially enforceable by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). We conclude that not only do the sharply differing EU and US approaches present significant problems of global digital interoperability, but neither proposal promises to result in practical and feasible consumer protection, at least not in the near term. Moreover, the EU proposal poses serious threats to the profitability of digital commerce. As an alternative, we propose a “third approach,” empowering the individual digital consumer/user through a personal online strategy we call “wide‐open privacy,” which provides security without sacrificing the transformative economic, cultural, and personal benefits of the Internet. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Customer Loyalty and Privacy on the Web

ABSTRACT

This study examines from simulation the effects of the privacy sensitivity of customers, the personalization practices or standards of retailers and the difficulty in locating favorable sites on the loyalty of consumers to a Web site. The key finding of the study is that customer privacy sensitivity is a critical success factor that significantly impacts loyalty to a retailer. Customers have higher loyalty to sites that request the least information, while they have lower loyalty to sites that request the most information. Web retailers considering expanded personalization of products or services to customers, through increased personal information, need to rethink their practices. The study also found that difficulty in locating a favorable site is a success factor that impacts retailer loyalty, and that customers have higher loyalty to difficult to locate favorable sites on the Web. These findings are important at a time when consumers are empowered with Web technology to immediately shop competitor sites.     

The Use of Vivid Stimuli to Enhance Comprehension of the Content of Product Warning Messages

Thousands of consumers are injured annually using consumer products. It is intuitively plausible that vivid product warnings may improve communication of the hazards associated with product use, yet vividness effects have been difficult to demonstrate empirically. Vivid product warnings are shown to increase accurate memory of the hazards associated with product use by enhancing cognitive elaboration on the content of a product warning message. Moreover, vivid product warnings may not, in and of themselves, generate negative elaborations regarding the safety of the product in question.     

Consuming the Self: New Age Spirituality as “Social Product” in Consumer Society

In the late twentieth century there has been a proliferation, diversification and popularisation of New Age spiritual discourses and practices in Western industrialised nations. New Age spiritual thinkers such a Deepak Chopra, Ken Wilber, Gary Zukav and Shakti Gawain, have modified discourse and practices from Eastern and Western traditional religious beliefs, Western science and psychotherapy, to develop their own discourse and practices designed to assist individuals “transform” themselves. This article discusses the “commodified production of self‐actualisation” in consumer society and discusses how the discourses and practices in selected texts from four New Age spiritual thinkers take the form of an ever‐changing “social product”. The analysis shows how the discourse and practices of New Age spiritual thinkers align themselves with consumptive behaviour by secularising, homogenising and over‐simplifying scientific, social scientific and traditional religious discourse and practices into “social products” for consumption. The analysis also reveals that New Age spiritual thinkers are engaged in a process that could be described as the “consumption of the self”. The implications of the “consumption of the self” will be discussed in terms of the way consumer society requires New Age “technologies of the self” to be continually redefined, restructured and repackaged in new and different forms.     

Privacy threats with retail technologies: A consumer perspective

This paper focuses on new retail technologies that acquire information from consumers, advancing that such devices represent privacy management concerns. Specifically, we propose that privacy perceptions in a retail environment are driven by retailer- and technology-related factors as well as consumers' personality traits. By running a moderated serial mediation analysis, we address the technologies' fairness and hedonism as antecedents of consumer privacy perceptions, technology acceptance and perceived value, and account for consumers' trust in the retailer. We find that privacy perceptions are directly affected by distributive fairness, while the technology's hedonism affects acceptance. Further, the effects extend to patronage intention and word-of-mouth.     

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.     

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.     

Neuromarketing: Ethical Implications of its Use and Potential Misuse

Neuromarketing is an emerging field in which academic and industry research scientists employ neuroscience techniques to study marketing practices and consumer behavior. The use of neuroscience techniques, it is argued, facilitates a more direct understanding of how brain states and other physiological mechanisms are related to consumer behavior and decision making. Herein, we will articulate common ethical concerns with neuromarketing as currently practiced, focusing on the potential risks to consumers and the ethical decisions faced by companies. We argue that the most frequently raised concerns—threats to consumer autonomy, privacy, and control—do not rise to meaningful ethical issues given the current capabilities and implementation of neuromarketing research. But, we identify how potentially serious ethical issues may emerge from neuromarketing research practices in industry, which are largely proprietary and opaque. We identify steps that can mitigate associated ethical risks and thus reduce the threats to consumers. We conclude that neuromarketing has clear potential for positive impact on society and consumers, a fact rarely considered in the discussion on the ethics of neuromarketing.     

Thinking Beyond Privacy Calculus: Investigating Reactions to Customer Surveillance

As interactive technologies become more pervasive, firms are increasingly conducting customer surveillance—the acquisition, usage, and storage of consumers' personal data—more covertly and with fewer resources. Privacy calculus—the rational decision to disclose personal data—has dominated the literature to explain rational or calculated reactions to customer surveillance, however, not all reactions can be explained by rational processes. This article advances our understanding of these reactions beyond the privacy calculus concept by proposing attitudes toward customer surveillance. Based on levels of consumer privacy and consumer value concerns, these attitudes are associated with four archetypes—pragmatists, protectionists, capitalists, and apathists. By understanding these attitudes, researchers and managers can gain insight into the diversity of consumers' concerns regarding both consumer privacy and consumer value in order to better explain observed marketplace behaviors.     

Online Privacy Policies and Diffusion Theory Perspectives

ABSTRACT

The use of the Internet and related technologies in data sharing and new product development, which essentially serves as a foundation for the management of data flows for strategic IT, are rapidly expanding. The innovation clusters and frameworks to characterize recent e-commerce sites' privacy policies to ensure confidentiality of personal information have been under increasing academic inquiries. An application of Rogers' (1995) diffusion of innovation or technology concepts as applied to the Internet is used to develop several models of e-commerce related security and privacy concerns. One possible solution discussed is the strategic leveraging of a consortium model, providing for governmental assurances of privacy and security. Unfortunately, the current e-commerce model has no governing body to represent the consumer and e-tailer in terms of privacy and security issues so critical to the continued growth and success of the Internet.     

Experiential Engagement and Active vs. Passive Behavior in Mobile Location-based Social Networks: The Moderating Role of Privacy

The study aims to understand how social media and mobile change customer experiences and influence the online active behavior. We explore how leveraging differently on experiences that the users live online helps to increase experiential engagement and mitigate the negative influence of privacy concern on the active use of location-based social networking applications. We conceptualize experiential engagement as a second-order construct that is manifested in two first-order “experience” constructs (Personal Engagement and Social Interactive Engagement). We theorize that our engagement constructs are causally related to consumer active and passive use of a mobile location-based social network and we test (n = 379) the moderating role of privacy concern on this relation in EU and the US. Findings show that Personal Engagement plays an important role influencing active usage when users are more concerned with privacy issues. Social Interactive Engagement shows a significant effect on passive usage meaning that the more people experience a deep sense of community the more they are interested in reading other comments or collecting information. Managerial implications are discussed.     

Volunteering personal information on the internet: Effects of reputation, privacy notices, and rewards on online consumer behavior

Accurate personal information provision is one of the most important determinants of the commercial development of the Web. However, consumers are usually reluctant to provide personal information or tend to provide false information online because of their concern about privacy violation risks. We employ a 2× 2× 2 experimental design to examine the effects of reputation, privacy notices, and rewards on online consumer behavior in volunteering two types of personal information on the Internet: demographic information and personally identifiable information. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the findings.