Information privacy concerns in the digital age

Abstract

The evolution of information technology has provided various values for people, but it also has become a cause of social issues. Among the issues, information privacy is one of the important topics facing individuals today. Many scholars started to discuss it and tried to understand its concept, characteristics, causes, and consequences at the individual, business, and societal level. However, studies about information privacy are still fragmented in spite of numerous previous works. In addition, new issues or phenomenon that is related to information privacy and hard to explain with existing theories are emerging. Thus, this study investigated new factors influencing individual’s information privacy concerns and behavioral outcomes in a society and business context. The first essay examines the effects of online anonymity through mitigating information privacy concerns on users’ participation behavior. A theoretical model was developed incorporating public self-awareness, social anxiety, online privacy concerns, and trust to explain how perceived anonymity affects online user participation. A large-scale survey was employed to collect data and the results indicate that perceived online anonymity positively influences online user participation. These findings have implications for why online anonymity is a key condition for online participation, which contribute to the building of social capital.

The second essay focuses on information privacy concerns in a business environment, and describes a research model that explains individuals` behavioral changes. Information-collecting companies often offer a monetary reward to users to alleviate privacy concerns and ease the collection of personal information. This study mainly discusses the negative effects of the rewards on both information privacy concerns (IPC) and information disclosure. The results show that monetary rewards increase IPC when an information-collecting company requires sensitive information. ...