An empirical investigation into factors driving consumers’ privacy judgments online

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to empirically examine factors driving consumers’ judgments about meeting privacy expectations online. This study allows for privacy expectations to be dependent on the context of the information exchange, identifies the contextually dependent factors driving privacy judgments, and examines whether and how individual’s characteristics impact privacy judgments. Individual-specific information – including institutional trust in websites and a general importance placed on privacy online – does not adequately predict privacy expectations within particular online situations. Predictions based on individual factors significantly overestimate the degree to which scenarios would meet privacy expectations particularly for respondents with a self-reported low priority for privacy. Contextual factors, such as the secondary use of information or the tracking of friends, significantly impact the degree privacy expectations are met. The results suggest that firms should evaluate specific priva...