“Now that you mention it”: a survey experiment on information, salience and online privacy
“Now that you mention it”: a survey experiment on information, salience and online privacy
Personal data lie at the forefront of different business models and constitute the main source of revenue of several online companies. In many cases, consumers have incomplete information about the digital transactions of their data. This paper investigates whether highlighting positive or negative aspects of online privacy, thereby mitigating the informational problem, can affect consumers’ privacy actions and attitudes. Results of two online survey experiments indicate that participants adopt a more conservative stance on disclosing identifiable information, such as name and email, even when they are informed about positive attitudes of companies towards their privacy. On the other hand, they do not change their attitudes and social actions towards privacy. These findings suggest that privacy concerns are dormant and may manifest when consumers are asked to think about privacy; and that privacy behavior is not necessarily sensitive to exposure to objective threats or benefits of disclosing personal information.
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Marreiros, Helia
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Vlassopoulos, Michael
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Tonin, Mirco
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schraefel, m.c.
ac304659-1692-47f6-b892-15113b8c929f
Marreiros, Helia
98fa5fe4-bdb6-4737-8a82-69dc3d1b031c
Vlassopoulos, Michael
2d557227-958c-4855-92a8-b74b398f95c7
Tonin, Mirco
2929ca00-ca4e-4eb3-bf2b-a5d233b80253
schraefel, m.c.
ac304659-1692-47f6-b892-15113b8c929f
Marreiros, Helia, Vlassopoulos, Michael and Tonin, Mirco et al.
(2016)
“Now that you mention it”: a survey experiment on information, salience and online privacy.
Author's Original, .
(Submitted)
Abstract
Personal data lie at the forefront of different business models and constitute the main source of revenue of several online companies. In many cases, consumers have incomplete information about the digital transactions of their data. This paper investigates whether highlighting positive or negative aspects of online privacy, thereby mitigating the informational problem, can affect consumers’ privacy actions and attitudes. Results of two online survey experiments indicate that participants adopt a more conservative stance on disclosing identifiable information, such as name and email, even when they are informed about positive attitudes of companies towards their privacy. On the other hand, they do not change their attitudes and social actions towards privacy. These findings suggest that privacy concerns are dormant and may manifest when consumers are asked to think about privacy; and that privacy behavior is not necessarily sensitive to exposure to objective threats or benefits of disclosing personal information.
Text
Now that you mention it.pdf
- Author's Original
More information
Submitted date: 15 February 2016
Organisations:
Economics
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 389781
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/389781
PURE UUID: 51d3689d-a26a-4a49-92ec-ce9818869887
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Date deposited: 22 Apr 2016 08:14
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:28
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Contributors
Author:
Helia Marreiros
Author:
Mirco Tonin
Author:
m.c. schraefel
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