Why experience matters to privacy: How context‐based experience moderates consumer privacy expectations for mobile applications

Abstract

Two dominant theoretical models for privacy—individual privacy preferences and context‐dependent definitions of privacy—are often studied separately in information systems research. This paper unites these theories by examining how individual privacy preferences impact context‐dependent privacy expectations. The paper theorizes that experience provides a bridge between individuals' general privacy attitudes and nuanced contextual factors. This leads to the hypothesis that, when making judgments about privacy expectations, individuals with less experience in a context rely more on individual preferences such as their generalized privacy beliefs, whereas individuals with more experience in a context are influenced by contextual factors and norms. To test this hypothesis, 1,925 American users of mobile applications made judgments about whether varied real‐world scenarios involving data collection and use met their privacy expectations. Analysis of the data suggests that experience using mobile applications did moderate the effect of individual preferences and contextual factors on privacy judgments. Experience changed the equation respondents used to assess whether data collection and use scenarios met their privacy expectations. Discovering the bridge between 2 dominant theoretical models enables future privacy research to consider both personal and contextual variables by taking differences in experience into account.