Abstract
This research paper investigates Saudi users’ awareness levels about privacy policies in Social Networking Sites (SNSs), their privacy concerns and their privacy protection measures. For this purpose, a research model that consists of five main constructs namely information privacy concern, awareness level of privacy policies of social networking sites, perceived vulnerability to privacy risks, perceived response efficacy, and privacy protecting behavior was developed. An online survey questionnaire was used to collect responses from a sample of (108) Saudi SNSs users. The study found that Saudi users of social networking sites are concerned about their information privacy, but they do not have enough awareness of the importance of privacy protecting behaviors to safeguard their privacy online. The research results also showed that there is a lack of awareness of privacy policies of Social networking sites among Saudi users. Testing hypothesis results using the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) showed that information privacy concern positively affects privacy protection behaviors in SNSs and perceived vulnerability to privacy risks positively affects information privacy concern.
Highlights
TODAY, the number of internet users in Saudi Arabia has reached 19.6 million [1]
In our study we focus on the information privacy concern among Social Networking Sites (SNSs)‟ users regarding their information to understand its effect on privacy protection behavior
This study aimed to investigate Saudi users‟ awareness levels about privacy policies of Social Networking Services (SNSs) and the factors affect privacy protecting behaviors
Summary
TODAY, the number of internet users in Saudi Arabia has reached 19.6 million [1]. With the continuous development in internet technologies over the years, smartphones revolution and the web mobile internet, social networking sites became a need for every internet user. The benefits that the SNSs provide are remarkable on many dimensions, including reducing the financial cost especially with the reasonable prices of internet services in Saudi Arabia. These Social networking services help the users to go beyond the geographic locations, and make it easier to connect and communicate with people all over the world. Every new invention in technology field including the SNSs, is intended to simplify users‟ lives by helping them to follow the modern era of speed and technology On another side, using SNSs is associated with some privacy risks such as the misuse of users personal information with serious personal and social implications. Most SNSs are clearly publishing their privacy policies (PP) regarding information sharing but many users do not pay enough attention to figure out the details components of each SNSs‟ PP
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