We examine three possible explanations for differences in Internet privacy concerns revealed by national regulation: (1) These differences reflect and are related to differences in cultural values described by other research; (2) these differences reflect differences in Internet experience; or (3) they reflect differences in the desires of political institutions without reflecting underlying differences in privacy preferences Using a sample of Internet users from 38 countries matched against the Internet population of the United States, we find support for (1) and (2), suggesting the need for localized privacy policies Privacy concerns decline with Internet experience Controlling for experience, cultural values were associated with differences in privacy concerns These cultural differences are mediated by regulatory differences, although new cultural differences emerge when differences in regulation are harmonized Differences in regulation reflect but also shape country differences Consumers in countries with sectoral regulation have less desire for more privacy regulation

International Differences in Information Privacy Concerns: A Global Survey of Consumers

While the literature on information security economics has begun to investigate the stock market impact of security breaches and vulnerability announcements, little more than anecdotal evidence exists on the effects of privacy breaches. In this paper we present the first comprehensive analysis of the impact of a company’s privacy incidents on its market value. We compile a broad data set of instances of exposure of personal information due to failures of some security mechanism (hacking, stolen or lost equipment, poor data handling processes, and others) and we present the results of various empirical analyses, including event study analysis. We show that there exists a negative and statistically significant impact of data breaches on a company’s market value on the announcement day for the breach. The cumulative effect increases in magnitudes over the day following the breach announcement, but then decreases and loses statistical significance. We also present regression analyses that aim at disentangling the eff ects of a number of factors on abnormal stock returns due to reported breaches. Finally, we comment on the differences between the impact of the security breaches already described in the literature, and the privacy breaches described here.

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Is There a Cost to Privacy Breaches? An Event Study

An empirical examination of consumer adoption of Internet of Things services

This study is one of the few empirical works addressing the impact of offline and online store impressions on consumer online purchase intentions. Building upon the literature on store image and consumer online purchasing, we propose positive effects of online store image and suggest mixed influences of offline store image perceptions. Drawing on a sample of 630 customers of one of the largest music retail stores in the Netherlands, hypotheses are tested. The empirical results clearly support the assumed positive effect of online store image, and confirm that the influence of offline store image on online purchase intentions can be positive as well negative. We discuss the implications of our research, and conclude with directions for further research.

Ellen Rose

Papers

An Empirical Examination of the Concern for Information Privacy Construct in the New Zealand Context.