INDIVIDUAL PRIVACY EMPOWERMENT IN ELECTRONIC SERVICE

Abstract

This study is motivated by the many reports on the lack of individual privacy empowerment in Facebook’s and Google’s recent research programs. Literature on privacy empowerment has mostly focused on the e-commerce context where participants are often perceived as potential customers and data collected are mostly for advertising purposes. In this study, we demonstrate how e-service companies can empower individuals to participate in their research programs and how such perceived empowerment can differ in different scenarios of data sensitivity. Three dimensions of privacy empowerment (informativity, optionality, and controllability) are identified and modeled in an information sensitivity context. Findings indicate that while informativity is very crucial at all levels of data sensitivity, optionality is only essential to achieving privacy empowerment in a highly sensitive data context. Practically, we recommend companies to integrate both informativity and optionality into their research designs to provide participants with a perceived sense of privacy empowerment