Exploring the impact of online privacy disclosures on consumer trust

We explore the impact of privacy disclosures on online shoppers’ trust in an e-tailer through a two-phase study. In the first study, we use a between-subjects factorial design to test whether the presence of an online privacy policy influences consumer trust and find that consumers are likely to res...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of retailing Vol. 82; no. 4; pp. 331 - 338
Main Authors Pan, Yue, Zinkhan, George M.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Greenwich Elsevier Inc 01.01.2006
Elsevier Limited
Subjects
Computer privacy
Consumer attitudes
Consumer trust
Consumers
Design
Disclosure
E-tailer
Electronic commerce
Experiment
Experiments
Internet
Marketing
Perceptions
Personal information
Privacy
Privacy policy
Privacy risk
Purchase intention
Retailing
Shopping
Studies
Trust
Privacy risk
E-tailer
Experiment
Privacy policy
Consumer trust
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Summary:We explore the impact of privacy disclosures on online shoppers’ trust in an e-tailer through a two-phase study. In the first study, we use a between-subjects factorial design to test whether the presence of an online privacy policy influences consumer trust and find that consumers are likely to respond more favorably to a shopping site with a clearly stated privacy message than to one without it, especially when privacy risk is high. In our second experiment, we examine the effects of different forms of privacy disclosures. The results suggest that online shoppers find a short, straightforward privacy statement more comprehensible than a lengthy, legalistic one. However, how a privacy policy is presented (in terms of wording) does not affect a shopper's trust in the store to any significant degree.
ISSN:0022-4359
1873-3271
DOI:10.1016/j.jretai.2006.08.006