Examining the inconsistent effect of privacy control on privacy concerns in e-commerce services: The moderating role of privacy experience and risk propensity

Abstract

Consumer privacy protection has become an important issue and challenge in the development of e-commerce, and consumers' concerns for privacy may lead to negative user experiences and make them more cautious about disclosing personal information. As one of the widely adopted privacy concerns inhibiting approaches, the accumulated information privacy literature indicated that providing privacy controls may not always mitigate privacy concerns, implying that there are potential boundary conditions to be clarified. This study aims to explain the inconsistent effect of perceived privacy control on privacy concerns from the perspective of individual factor differences among consumers. We investigated the roles of trust, Internet privacy experience, and risk propensity in the relationship between perceived privacy control and privacy concerns. We collected empirical data containing 625 representative samples of Chinese consumers based on a mainstream online survey platform in China. The results suggest that trust in e-commerce partially mediates the influence of perceived privacy control on privacy concerns. Internet privacy experience positively moderates the relationship between perceived privacy control and trust in e-commerce, and both Internet privacy experience and risk propensity negatively moderate the relationship between trust in e-commerce and privacy concerns. This study extends existing information privacy and trust literature through the analysis of the mediating effect of trust and the moderating effects of consumers' individual factors. We also discuss the potential positive and negative implications of this research.