Empirical Studies on Online Information Privacy Concerns: Literature Review and an Integrative Framework

In the e-commerce environment, individuals’ concerns for online information privacy play critical roles in determining their intention to use the Internet to provide personal information for services and transactions. Understanding this relationship has important implications for e-commerce. Despite much research in this area, an overarching picture of the relationship between information privacy concerns and the antecedent and consequence factors is yet to be drawn. Based on a review on empirical studies in this area, this research summarizes the conceptualizations of privacy concerns and the antecedents and consequences. An integrative framework is developed to illustrate the relationships between the factors. In this framework, a person’s concern for information privacy regarding a specific e-commerce website is distinguished from his/her concern for information privacy regarding the general e-commerce environment. These two forms of privacy concerns have distinct impacts on a person’s online behavior. Their relationships with multiple antecedent and consequence factors are analyzed

The impact of privacy regulations on the development of electronic commerce in Jordan and the UK

Improvement in information communication technology (ICT) is one of the factors behind growth in economic productivity. A major dimension of this is the use of the Internet in e-commerce, allowing companies to collect, store, and exchange personal information obtained from visitors to their websites. Electronic commerce has many different variants, and is believed by many governments throughout the world to be the engine of economic stability in the future. While electronic commerce has many benefits, there is evidence to suggest privacy concerns are an inhibitor to its adoption in Jordan and the UK. According to Campbell (1997, p.45), privacy in this context can be defined as “the ability of individuals to determine the nature and extent of information about them which is being communicated to others”. The importance of information in e-commerce has increased, because the main success factor for the completion of transactions between businesses and consumers is the companies’ ability to access consumers’ personal details. This conflicts with the consumers’ fear of providing personal information to un-trusted parties, which makes them disinterested in entering contracts via the internet. This research discusses privacy concerns as an inhibitor for electronic commerce by providing a comparison between UK and Jordanian regulations, to establish the impact that these regulations have ameliorating privacy concerns regarding the development of electronic commerce in Jordan and the UK. The interpretive grounded theory approach has allowed the researcher to gain a deep understanding about privacy perceptions of electronic commerce held by the main stakeholders: government, businesses and consumers. Furthermore, through implementing the Straussian grounded theory approach as a data collection and analysis method, two grounded theories have emerged as giving deeper understanding of the situation in Jordan and the UK regarding privacy concerns and how this affects electronic commerce development in both countries.Albalqa Applied University- Jorda

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationThis dissertation highlights two important issues with regard to online privacy concerns in e-commerce: (1) why can't privacy concerns explain online behavior? and (2) what are the essential sources of privacy concerns in e-commerce? In Chapter 2, we explain the discrepancy between people's privacy concerns and their willingness to personal information to an online vender, which is called the online privacy paradox. Drawing on construal level theory (CLT), we suggest that people form privacy concerns in a general situation by construing benefits of information disclosure and privacy risk. Due to high psychological distance, the evaluations of benefits and privacy risk become abstract and superficial (i.e., high-level construal). However, as people traverse to a particular situation, the evaluations of those factors become more specific, due to decreased psychological distance (i.e., low-level construal). When high- and low-level construals are consistent, privacy concerns significantly affect information disclosure in a particular situation. In contrast, when the construals are inconsistent, privacy concerns can't explain information disclosure in a particular situation (i.e., privacy paradox). In Chapter 3, we attempt to identify essential antecedents of privacy concerns in ecommerce. Drawing on protection motivation theory, we select privacy risk, self-efficacy, and response efficacy as generic determinants of privacy concerns. We also identify notice and consent of information practice as privacy concerns' determinants specific to ecommerce. According to our results, while privacy risk and consent had direct effects on privacy concerns, self-efficacy and notice indirectly impact privacy concerns through privacy risk. In Chapter 4, we seek to explain the inconsistent direct and indirect effect of privacy concerns by examining attitudinal ambivalence. We develop two alternative models: direct ambivalence and indirect ambivalence model. The direct ambivalence model conceptualizes privacy concerns as attitude and assumes the direct effect of privacy concerns. The effect of privacy concerns is moderated by the ambivalence of privacy selfefficacy and privacy risk. On the other hand, indirect ambivalence model conceptualizes privacy concerns as individual characteristics and assumes indirect effect of privacy concerns via favorability of information disclosure. The relation between favorability and information disclosure is moderated by the ambivalence of benefits and privacy risk

Concern for Information Privacy and Online Consumer Purchasing

Although electronic commerce experts often cite privacy concerns as barriers to consumer electronic commerce, there is a lack of understanding about how these privacy concerns impact consumers\u27 willingness to conduct transactions online. Therefore, the goal of this study is to extend previous models of e-commerce adoption by specifically assessing the impact that consumers\u27 concerns for information privacy (CFIP) have on their willingness to engage in online transactions. To investigate this, we conducted surveys focusing on consumers\u27 willingness to transact with a well-known and less well-known Web merchant. Results of the study indicate that concern for information privacy affects risk perceptions, trust, and willingness to transact for a well-known merchant, but not for a less well-known merchant. In addition, the results indicate that merchant familiarity does not moderate the relationship between CFIP and risk perceptions or CFIP and trust. Implications for researchers and practitioners are discussed

Measuring Users’ Privacy Concerns in Social Networking Sites

Social networking sites (SNSs) have become increasingly popular in recent years. These websites allow millions of individuals to create online profiles and disclose information with others. The disclosure of personal information has been considered as a major issue which can lead to negative consequences; therefore, privacy is a major concern of SNSs users. It is important to understand and measure the complexity of privacy concerns in SNSs. In this study, we investigate the nature of users’ privacy concerns in SNSs and its differences with information privacy concerns which previously studied in the setting of Internet and e-commerce. We then propose a new scale for measuring users’ privacy concerns in SNSs (UPCSNS) which will be useful for future SNSs privacy studies

E-Commerce and Trans-Atlantic Privacy

For almost a decade, the United States and Europe have anticipated a clash over the protection of personal information. Between the implementation in Europe of comprehensive legal protections pursuant to the directive on data protection and the continued reliance on industry self-regulation in the United States, trans-Atlantic privacy policies have been at odds with each other. The rapid growth in e-commerce is now sparking the long-anticipated trans-Atlantic privacy clash. This Article will first look at the context of American e-commerce and the disjuncture between citizens\u27 privacy and business practices. The Article will then turn to the international context and explore the adverse impact, on the status quo in the United States, of European data protection law as harmonized by Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 Oct. 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data. Following this analysis, the Article will show that the “safe harbor” agreement between the United States Department of Commerce and the European Commission--designed to alleviate the threat of disruption in trans-Atlantic data flows and, in particular, to mollify concerns for the stability of online data transfers--is only a weak, seriously flawed solution for e-commerce. In the end, extra-legal technical measures and contractual mechanisms might minimize privacy conflicts for e-commerce transactions, but an international treaty is likely the only sustainable solution for long-term growth in trans-border commercial interchange

Antecedents And Consequences Of Consumers Online Privacy Concerns

This paper proposes a theoretical framework to investigate the factors that influence the privacy concerns of consumers who use the Internet, and the possible outcomes of such privacy concerns. Factors identified as antecedents to online privacy concerns are perceived vulnerability to personal data collection and misuse, perceived ability to control data collection and subsequent use, the level of Internet literacy, social awareness, and background cultural factors.  The possible consequences of online privacy concerns are the lack of willingness to provide personal information online, rejection of e-commerce, or even unwillingness to use the Internet.  Managerial implications of the framework are discussed

Readability of Privacy Policies of Healthcare Websites

Health-related personal information is very privacy-sensitive. Online privacy policies inform Website users about the ways their personal information is gathered, processed and stored. In the light of increasing privacy concerns, privacy policies seem to be an important mechanism for increasing customer loyalty. However, in practice, consumers only rarely read privacy policies, possibly due to the common assumption that policies are hard to read. By designing and implementing an automated extraction and readability analysis toolset, we present the first study that provides empirical evidence on readability of over 5,000 privacy policies of health websites and over 1,000 privacy policies of top e-commerce sites. Our results confirm the difficulty of reading current privacy policies. We further show that health websites\u27 policies are more readable than top e-commerce ones, but policies of non-commercial health websites are worse readable than commercial ones. Our study also provides a solid policy text corpus for further research

Towards Conceptualizing Information Transparency and its Role in Internet Consumers' Concerns: A Literature Review

In recent years, calls for a safer online shopping environment are growing louder. Empirical studies on consumers’ expectations of ethical e-commerce practices have found that the top concerns among e-shoppers revolved around security of transactions, privacy protection of personal data, deception and reliability issues. Consumer generally desire richer and truthful information to make purchase decisions. By addressing the information needs of consumers, transparency presents itself as a promising concept for firms to leverage towards strategizing its role in ethical practices. This paper revisits the consumer-perceived ethical issues in e-commerce literature, presents the disclosure paradox faced by e-seller firms, reviews the various conceptualizations of transparency in multidisciplinary literature and suggests extending the transparency strategy to map to consumers’ informational needs and concerns