Mining social network data for personalisation and privacy concerns: A case study of Facebook’s Beacon

This is the post-print version of the final published paper that is available from the link below.The popular success of online social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook is a hugely tempting resource of data mining for businesses engaged in personalised marketing. The use of personal information, willingly shared between online friends' networks intuitively appears to be a natural extension of current advertising strategies such as word-of-mouth and viral marketing. However, the use of SNS data for personalised marketing has provoked outrage amongst SNS users and radically highlighted the issue of privacy concern. This paper inverts the traditional approach to personalisation by conceptualising the limits of data mining in social networks using privacy concern as the guide. A qualitative investigation of 95 blogs containing 568 comments was collected during the failed launch of Beacon, a third party marketing initiative by Facebook. Thematic analysis resulted in the development of taxonomy of privacy concerns which offers a concrete means for online businesses to better understand SNS business landscape - especially with regard to the limits of the use and acceptance of personalised marketing in social networks

User misrepresentation in online social networks: how competition and altruism impact online disclosure behaviours

Their sheer size and scale give social networks significant potential for shaping popular opinions. While the spread of information and influence within social networks has been popular area of research for some time, more recently a research trend has appeared in which the researcher seeks to understand how users can aggressively influence community opinions, often using misrepresented or false information. Such misrepresentations by users are deeply troubling for any social network, where revenue-generation and their reputation depend on accurate and reliable user generated information. This study investigates the individual motivations that both promote and inhibit intentions towards personal information misrepresentation. These motivations are hypothesised to result from the dichotomy of competitive and altruistic attitudes existing with social network communities. Results of a survey analysis involving 502 users of Facebook offer insights useful for understanding social network information sharing practices. Marketing strategies, in particular, should benefit from the careful evaluation of the factors that lead to honesty (or dishonesty) among OSN users

Exploring the impact of data breaches and system malfunctions on users’ safety and privacy perceptions in the context of autonomous vehicles

Technological advancements allow for increasingly automated driving systems as well as the large-scale availability of fully autonomous vehicles (AVs) in the future. In this research-in-progress paper, we propose a research concept to further investigate the interplay of users’ perceived privacy risks and trust in AV safety associated with data breaches and system failures. Specifically, we aim to analyze whether system malfunctions impact privacy risk perceptions and whether data breaches impact users’ trust in AV safety by considering the trust in the AV manufacturer. Additionally, we offer first insights into preliminary data and explain our future research intentions. A more detailed understanding of the relationship between privacy and safety trust in the context of AVs could help manufacturers to better direct efforts to compensate for or prevent data breaches and system malfunctions potentially leading to increased user acceptance and technology adoption

User concerns regarding information sharing on social networking sites:The user’s perspective in the context of national culture

Information sharing via social networking systems (SNS) is a common practice among academics, as well as others, that brings substantial benefits. At the same time, privacy concerns are widespread among SNS users, which may tend to inhibit their maximising the benefit from using the systems. This paper investigates the proposition that SNS user attitudes and behaviour are affected by privacy concerns, and that the effects are subject to significant cultural factors. A broad assessment of the literature provides the context for the study. Working in the context of Saudi Arabia, we apply a mixed-methods approach beginning with in-depth interviews, exposing in detail a range of views and concerns about privacy and SNS use, also allowing us to identify three key factors that bear on SNS usage and users’ concerns. Analysis of these factors in the light of the “theory of reasoned action” derives a structural model predicting several hypotheses relating the factors and users’ attitudes and behaviour. We assess the model through development of a questionnaire, administered to a large pool of academic participants, that allows us to examine how the model responds in general, and via multigroup partial least squares analyses, differentially to gender and to culturally distinct (Arab vs. non-Arab) constituents of the participant group. Results show good support for the hypotheses and clear gender and culture effects. Picking up issues from the interviews, discussion focuses on users’ views about SNS providers’ privacy policies and their inadequacy regarding culturally specific ethical concerns. We argue that these views may reflect different regulatory environments in combination with other cultural factors

The role of security notices and online consumer behaviour: An empirical study of social networking users

This paper uses a survey of social networking users to empirically explore their perceptions of security notices – independently verified artefacts informing internet site users that security measures are taken by the site owner. We investigate such factors as purchase experience, purchase intention, risk propensity, usage of various social network categories and user victimisation. The results suggest a strong positive link between purchase intention and paying attention to security notices/features on social networks. We find that higher use of narrow-purpose social networking services has a negative association with paying attention to security notices. We also show that users with higher risk propensity pay less attention to security notices/features. Finally, we find no association between purchase experience, user victimisation and perception of security notices/features. Our results provide new, and possibly more refined, evidence of the factors that influence the attention paid to security notices/features by social media users. The results have important implications for theory development, policy and practice

Advances in Social Media Research:Past, Present and Future

Social media comprises communication websites that facilitate relationship forming between users from diverse backgrounds, resulting in a rich social structure. User generated content encourages inquiry and decision-making. Given the relevance of social media to various stakeholders, it has received significant attention from researchers of various fields, including information systems. There exists no comprehensive review that integrates and synthesises the findings of literature on social media. This study discusses the findings of 132 papers (in selected IS journals) on social media and social networking published between 1997 and 2017. Most papers reviewed here examine the behavioural side of social media, investigate the aspect of reviews and recommendations, and study its integration for organizational purposes. Furthermore, many studies have investigated the viability of online communities/social media as a marketing medium, while others have explored various aspects of social media, including the risks associated with its use, the value that it creates, and the negative stigma attached to it within workplaces. The use of social media for information sharing during critical events as well as for seeking and/or rendering help has also been investigated in prior research. Other contexts include political and public administration, and the comparison between traditional and social media. Overall, our study identifies multiple emergent themes in the existing corpus, thereby furthering our understanding of advances in social media research. The integrated view of the extant literature that our study presents can help avoid duplication by future researchers, whilst offering fruitful lines of enquiry to help shape research for this emerging field

Understanding privacy leakage concerns in Facebook: A longitudinal case study

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel UniversityThis thesis focuses on examining users’ perceptions of privacy leakage in Facebook – the world’s largest and most popular social network site (SNS). The global popularity of this SNS offers a hugely tempting resource for organisations engaged in online business. The personal data willingly shared between online friends’ networks intuitively appears to be a natural extension of current advertising strategies such as word-of-mouth and viral marketing. Therefore organisations are increasingly adopting innovative ways to exploit the detail-rich personal data of SNS users for business marketing. However, commercial use of such personal information has provoked outrage amongst Facebook users and has radically highlighted the issue of privacy leakage. To date, little is known about how SNS users perceive such leakage of privacy. So a greater understanding of the form and nature of SNS users’ concerns about privacy leakage would contribute to the current literature as well as help to formulate best practice guidelines for organisations. Given the fluid, context-dependent and temporal nature of privacy, a longitudinal case study representing the launch of Facebook’s social Ads programme was conducted to investigate the phenomenon of privacy leakage within its real-life setting. A qualitative user blogs commentary was collected between November 2007 and December 2010 during the two-stage launch of the social Ads programme. Grounded theory data analysis procedures were used to analyse users’ blog postings. The resulting taxonomy shows that business integrity, user control, transparency, data protection breaches, automatic information broadcast and information leak are the core privacy leakage concerns of Facebook users. Privacy leakage concerns suggest three limits, or levels: organisational, user and legal, which provide the basis to understanding the nature and scope of the exploitation of SNS users’ data for commercial purposes. The case study reported herein is novel, as existing empirical research has not identified and analysed privacy leakage concerns of Facebook users

Effects of Website Credibility and Brand Trust on Responses to Online Behavioral Advertising

Online behavioral advertising that tracks user data has witnessed a dramatic increase in popularity. Using Psychological Reactance Theory, this study examines the effects of brand trust and website credibility on responses to behavioral advertising via privacy concerns. A 2 (brand trust: high vs. low) by 2 (website credibility: high vs. low) between-subjects experiment was conducted (N = 424). Results suggest that while brand trust influences purchase intention—as mediated via affective reactance— website credibility only exerts modest effects on the dependent variables. Implications for user perception factors and contextual factors—including ad effectiveness in the digital personalized marketing realm—are discussed

Trust in Electronic Markets, A Review and Synthesis of Theories

Electronic markets have grown substantially, and they are considered as a significant form of retail. Despite this growth, the lack of physical transactions between different parties as well as concerns about the privacy of users and the security of transactions has led to a decline in users’ trust in these platforms. This deficiency has motivated many researchers to study the concept of trust in the e-commerce environment. In this paper, we have created a comprehensive and up-to-date framework that synthesises the findings of the previous studies. To achieve this aim, we use a systematic literature review method. We searched 17 top-ranked information systems journals and conferences and reviewed the resultant pool of 127 papers. Beyond investigating the antecedents and consequences of trust in e-commerce, we reviewed the theoretical basis used in the literature. The study concludes with implications of the literature for practice and a critical agenda for future research