Concern for Information Privacy and Online Consumer Purchasing in China

Individuals’ concern for information privacy (CFIP) impacts beliefs, intentions, and behaviors in a variety of contexts, including consumer electronic commerce. Most empirical studies on the impact of CFIP on electronic commerce have been conducted using consumers in the United States. Despite China’s growing economy and increasing importance in the global economy, to date, there has been no empirical study of CFIP’s impact on Chinese consumers’ willingness to engage in transactions online. The purpose of this study is to test a widely-referenced model of CFIP’s role in consumer e-commerce in the context of China. We conducted surveys of Chinese consumers’ willingness to engage in transactions with two online merchants, a familiar merchant (Taobao) and a less-familiar merchant (Amazon). For both merchants, CFIP had only mediated impacts on consumers’ willingness to transact with online merchants. While there were similarities between our results and those reported in the original study, there were also differences. Our findings provide a number of contributions for research and practice

Stuck in the Permissions With You:Developer & User Perspectives on App Permissions & Their Privacy Ramifications

While the literature on permissions from the end-user perspective is rich, there is a lack of empirical research on why developers request permissions, their conceptualization of permissions, and how their perspectives compare with end-users’ perspectives. Our study aims to address these gaps using a mixed-methods approach.Through interviews with 19 app developers and a survey of 309 Android and iOS end-users, we found that both groups shared similar concerns about unnecessary permissions breaking trust, damaging the app’s reputation, and potentially allowing access to sensitive data. We also found that developer participants sometimes requested multiple permissions due to confusion about the scope of certain permissions or third-party library requirements. Additionally, most end-user participants believed they were responsible for granting a permission request, and it was their choice to do so, a belief shared by many developer participants. Our findings have implications for improving the permission ecosystem for both developers and end-users