Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
more aware of privacy issues and therefore are
more likely to take precautions in their online
transactions (such as using anonymity techniques,
encryption software, etc.), thereby decreasing
their own concern, implying that this group of
consumers may exhibit different behaviors than
novice users (Armstrong & Forde, 2003; Bellman
et al., 2004).
While there has been some attention to the ex-
perienced online consumer and privacy concerns,
no research to date has empirically developed a
typology of experienced “expert” household end
users and sought to relate these typologies to on-
line behavior. “Expert” end users are of particular
interest because they are becoming the dominant
group online. We are rapidly exiting the era when
most online household end users were novices
with low levels of knowledge and experience in
the online environment. More often, a purpose-
ful motivation has replaced random surfing of
the Internet (Rodgers & Sheldon, 2002; Zhang
et al., 2007). Experts are an important popula-
tion sample to answer questions about consumer
privacy protection strategies online because they
are better able to distinguish between relevant
and irrelevant information and have more dif-
ferentiated and organised knowledge (Larkin,
McDermott, Simon, & Simon, 1980).
This research addresses the need to develop an
e-privacy typology of expert household end users
and relate these privacy types to online behavior.
Perceived risk is used as a central theoretical
foundation. Informed by typologies developed
in earlier research (Sheehan, 2002; Sheehan &
Hoy, 2000; Perry 6, 2002), we integrate govern-
ment privacy guidelines(www.dcita.gov.au) for
end users to ascertain the dimensions of privacy
concerns. The next section presents the method
undertaken for two studies: Study 1 empirically
derives a typology of e-privacy dimensions for
expert household end users; Study 2 tests the causal
relationships among these derived e-privacy di-
mensions, perceived risk, and online subscription
and purchasing behavior.
methodology
The Sample
A sample of 76 expert household end users was
recruited for the present study by surveying an In-
ternet marketing class of university, e-commerce
students who all had access to the Internet via
their home computers. There was a 91% response
rate to the survey. 63% of respondents were male
and 37% were female. 94% were in the age range
18-25 years while 6% were over 25 years. A conve-
nience sample of college students was considered
appropriate for the current study because demo-
graphically they share characteristics of the stereo-
typical user—young, university/college-educated
males. Importantly, representation of women in
the sample corresponds to the changing gender
trend in user statistics over time that indicates a
growing population of educated women online
(Rainie & Kohut, 2000). It is argued therefore
that university or college students are representa-
tive of a dominant cohort of online users for the
following reasons: the tertiary student group is
the most connected segment of the population in
the United States with 93% of American college
students regularly using the Internet (Nua Internet
Surveys, 2002) and a similar trend is evident in
the Australian population (Australian Bureau of
Statistics, 2004). In addition, their visits to on-
line shopping sites is growing dramatically (Nua
Internet Surveys, 2002). Though no specific data
were available for Australia, it has further been
predicted that U.S. and European teenagers are
likely to spend USD$10.6 billion online by 2005
(Nua Internet Surveys, 2002). Thus, a sample
drawn from university students is appropriate as
it is drawn from an active and rapidly growing
segment of experienced and frequent users of
the Internet.
Additionally, this sample was considered to
be illustrative of expert household end users
as it is descriptive of experiential behavior of
Internet users based on the following criteria;
Search WWH ::
Custom Search