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Privacy Concerns and Behavior of Pokémon Go Players in Germany
Abstract
We investigate privacy concerns and the privacy behavior of users of the AR smartphone game Pokémon Go. Pokémon Go accesses several functionalities of the smartphone and, in turn, collects a plethora of data of its users. For assessing the privacy concerns, we conduct an online study in Germany with 683 users of the game. The results indicate that the majority of the active players are concerned about the privacy practices of companies. This result hints towards the existence of a cognitive dissonance, i.e. the privacy paradox. Since this result is common in the privacy literature, we complement the first study with a second one with 199 users, which aims to assess the behavior of users with regard to which measures they undertake for protecting their privacy. The results are highly mixed and dependent on the measure, i.e. relatively many participants use privacy-preserving measures when interacting with their smartphone. This implies that many users know about risks and might take actions to protect their privacy, but deliberately trade-off their information privacy for the utility generated by playing the game.
... The potential risks and vulnerability to users' information are much higher while using mobile AR apps, compared to using non-AR mobile apps [39]. Research suggested that some AR app users are concerned about privacy issues regarding being filmed by the AR app, distribution of their personal data by the app developer without permission, and the feeling of being closely observed by the app [40][41][42]. ...
The main aim of this research is to gain understanding of the motives and factors that influence users’ willingness to share personal information, particularly in the realm of augmented reality (AR) apps. Within this context, we also examined the hot–cold empathy gap, i.e., the difference between how people estimate their reactions if faced with a particular situation (cold) to how they act when they are in such a situation (hot). Four experiments were executed to examine the research questions. The Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) crowdsourcing platform was used to recruit participants from all around the world. An experimental method was used to address a number of research questions. In order to avoid a carry-over effect, a different group of participants was recruited for each question researched. The research focused on participants over the age of 18, from different countries with various backgrounds. The various experiments mimic real life scenarios. Findings show that AR app users are willing to grant access to certain types of information but are prone to refuse access to highly invasive personal information. The order of requests presented to users to grant access to their personal information is significant. In addition, we found a correlation between the time gaps between access requests and the willingness of users to grant access. Finally, we found that users underestimate their own willingness to share their private information when they are asked a hypothetical question about it.
... Pokémon Go is used as a case for testing the proposition since the Pokémon brand is very strong and well known among people. Besides specific privacy concerns associated with Pokémon Go [7,8], research indicates that there are major privacy issues with MAR apps in general [9,10] and that individuals are concerned about their privacy when using AR [11][12][13]. We gathered 418 complete questionnaires from active players of the game in an online survey. ...
Pokémon Go is one of the most successful mobile games of all time. Millions played and still play this mobile augmented reality (AR) application, although severe privacy issues are pervasive in the app due to its use of several sensors such as location data and camera. In general, individuals regularly use online services and mobile apps although they might know that the use is associated with high privacy risks. This seemingly contradictory behavior of users is analyzed from a variety of different perspectives in the information systems domain. One of these perspectives evaluates privacy-related decision making processes based on concepts from behavioral economics. We follow this line of work by empirically testing one exemplary extraneous factor within the "enhanced APCO model" (antecedents-privacy concerns-outcome). Specific empirical tests on such biases are rare in the literature which is why we propose and empirically analyze the extraneous influence of a positivity bias. In our case, we hypothesize that the bias is induced by childhood brand nostalgia towards the Pokémon franchise. We analyze our proposition in the context of an online survey with 418 active players of the game. Our results indicate that childhood brand nostalgia influences the privacy calculus by exerting a large effect on the benefits within the trade-off and, therefore, causing a higher use frequency. Our work shows two important implications. First, the behavioral economics perspective on privacy provides additional insights relative to previous research. However, the effects of several other biases and heuristics have to be tested in future work. Second, relying on nostalgia represents an important, but also double-edged, instrument for practitioners to market new services and applications.
Purpose
Due to augmented reality (AR) technology improvements, the retail industry has embraced smart retailing as its primary business model. Therefore, organizations must comprehend the intricacies of AR adoption to persuade clients to adopt this revolutionary technology effectively. Thus, the current study proposes and evaluates a comprehensive model that includes unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2), privacy concerns, physical risks and technological anxiety to predict customers’ intention to use AR apps in the retail industry in the Egyptian context.
Design/methodology/approach
The current study examines 398 responses from Egyptian shoppers using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Snowball sampling was employed in the existing study. The participants were selected using a “self-selection” strategy, which is an excellent method for research investigations in which the participants freely participate.
Findings
Consumers’ intentions to use AR apps in retail settings are positively impacted by task-technology fit, performance expectation, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions and hedonic motivation. Conversely, privacy and physical risks negatively affect customers’ intention to use AR apps in retail. Furthermore, technological anxiety serves as a moderator factor in these connections.
Originality/value
To the best of our knowledge, the current study is considered the first to test the role of UTAUT2, privacy and physical risks on users' behavioral intentions toward adopting AR apps in retail. It also examines technological anxiety as a moderator in the retail setting.
This study explores the perceptions and practices of undergraduates in Information Technology (IT) regarding privacy issues in digital games. This topic becomes relevant in the current scenario where artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly integrated into digital games, providing an enhanced experience for players. However, this integration poses security and privacy challenges, the understanding of which is crucial for both players and developers. The primary objective of this research is to comprehend the participants’ perceptions and understandings of privacy in digital games. We employed a qualitative and quantitative methodology to address our research inquiries. Through an online form of data collection, we obtained 61 responses. Among the obtained information, we observed that 40% of the students are interested in pursuing a career in game development, and 50% would consider this possibility. Noteworthy among the identified issues is the necessity for companies to devise more effective means of communicating their privacy policies to players/users, adapting the language to their target audience. Participants reported attacks related to online multiplayer games and expressed concerns about the security of personal data.
While there is increasing global attention to data privacy, most of their current theoretical understanding is based on research conducted in a few countries. Prior work argues that people's cultural backgrounds might shape their privacy concerns; thus, we could expect people from different world regions to conceptualize them in diverse ways. We collected and analyzed a large-scale dataset of tweets about the #CambridgeAnalytica scandal in Spanish and English to start exploring this hypothesis. We employed word embeddings and qualitative analysis to identify which information privacy concerns are present and characterize language and regional differences in emphasis on these concerns. Our results suggest that related concepts, such as regulations, can be added to current information privacy frameworks. We also observe a greater emphasis on data collection in English than in Spanish. Additionally, data from North America exhibits a narrower focus on awareness compared to other regions under study. Our results call for more diverse sources of data and nuanced analysis of data privacy concerns around the globe.
Pokémon Go might be considered to be one of the most successful exergames ever released. When the game was released in the summer of 2016, Pokémon Go players spent more time exercising, being outdoors, and socializing with the unknown, family, and friends. There have been many papers that report on how playing Pokémon Go affects the player’s health. However, few studies report how playing the game has different health and social impact on different groups of players. Specifically, the paper investigates how Pokémon Go has different health and social effects on gender, where the game is played, how much video games players play, their initial physical activity level, and occupation. The survey results of over two thousand active Pokémon Go players show that playing Pokémon Go has a statistically significant positive effect on physical and social activity. It was also found that the game had a different effect on various groups of players and that 50% of the players reported positive health benefits, including weight loss, loss in body fat, and gain in muscle mass. The paper’s most significant result is how Pokémon Go managed to motivate groups who are hard to motivate to be physically and socially active.
Augmented reality (AR) gained much public attention after the success of Pokémon Go in 2016, and has found application in online games, social media, interior design, and other services since then. AR is highly dependent on various different sensors gathering real time context-specific personal information about the users causing more severe and new privacy threats compared to other technologies. These threats have to be investigated as long as AR is still shapeable in order to ensure users’ privacy and foster market adoption of privacy-friendly AR systems.
To provide viable recommendations regarding the design of privacy-friendly AR systems, we follow a user-centric approach and investigate the role and causes of privacy concerns within the context of mobile AR (MAR) apps. We design a vignette-based online experiment adapting ideas from the framework of contextual integrity to analyze drivers of privacy concerns related to MAR apps, such as characteristics of permissions, trust-evoking signals, and AR-related contextual factors. The results of the large-scale experiment with 1,100 participants indicate that privacy concerns are mainly determined by the sensitivity of app permissions (i.e., whether sensitive resources on the smartphone are accessed) and the number of prior app downloads. Furthermore, we devise detailed practical and theoretical implications for developers, regulatory authorities and future research.
Augmented Reality (AR) is one of the most prominent emerging technologies recently. This increase in recognition has happened predominantly because of the success of the smartphone game "Pokémon Go". But research on AR is not a new strand of literature. Especially computer scientists investigate different technological solutions and areas of application for almost 30 years. This systematic literature review aims at analyzing, synthesizing and categorizing this strand of research in the information systems (IS) domain. We follow an established methodology for conducting the literature review ensuring rigor and replicability. We apply a keyword and backward search resulting in 28 and 118 articles, respectively. Results are categorized with regard to the focus of the research and the domain of the application being investigated. We show that research on user behavior is underrepresented in the current IS literature on AR compared to technical research, especially in the domains gaming and smartphone browsers.
This study is part of a doctoral thesis on the topic of Hyperfiction: Past, Present and Future of Storytelling through Hypertext. It explores in depth the impact of transmedia storytelling and the role of hypertext in the realm of the currently popular social media phenomenon Pokémon GO. Storytelling is a powerful method to engage and unite people. Moreover, the technology progress adds a whole new angle to the method, with hypertext and cross-platform sharing that enhance the traditional storytelling so much that transmedia storytelling gives unlimited opportunities to affect the everyday life of people across the globe. This research aims at examining the transmedia storytelling approach in Pokémon GO, and explaining how that contributed to its establishment as a massive worldwide hit in less than a week. The social engagement is investigated in all major media platforms, including traditional and online media channels. Observation and content analyses are reported in this paper to form the conclusion that transmedia storytelling with the input of hypertext has a promising future as a method of establishing a productive and rewarding communication strategy.
Keywords—Communication, hypertext, Pokémon GO, storytelling, transmedia.
Augmented Reality is a technique that enables users to interact with their physical environment through the overlay of digital information. While being researched for decades, more recently, Augmented Reality moved out of the research labs and into the field. While most of the applications are used sporadically and for one particular task only, current and future scenarios will provide a continuous and multi-purpose user experience. Therefore, in this paper, we present the concept of Pervasive Augmented Reality, aiming to provide such an experience by sensing the user's current context and adapting the AR system based on the changing requirements and constraints. We present a taxonomy for Pervasive Augmented Reality and context-aware Augmented Reality, which classifies context sources and context targets relevant for implementing such a context-aware, continuous Augmented Reality experience. We further summarize existing approaches that contribute towards Pervasive Augmented Reality. Based our taxonomy and survey, we identify challenges for future research directions in Pervasive Augmented Reality.
In times of ubiquitous electronic communication and increasing industry pressure for standard electronic authentication, the maintenance of privacy, or "the right to be left alone" becomes a subject of increasing concern. The possibility of a "transparent human," whose vital information is up for grabs, can most easily be envisioned in the realm of e-commerce, due in part to the large amounts of data available, and in part to the high payoffs expected from using this data for marketing purposes.
Current approaches to measuring people's everyday usage of technology-based media and other computer-related activities have proved to be problematic as they use varied outcome measures, fail to measure behavior in a broad range of technology-related domains and do not take into account recently developed types of technology including smartphones. In the present study, a wide variety of items, covering a range of up-to-date technology and media usage behaviors. Sixty-six items concerning technology and media usage, along with 18 additional items assessing attitudes toward technology, were administered to two independent samples of individuals, comprising 942 participants. Factor analyses were used to create 11 usage subscales representing smartphone usage, general social media usage, Internet searching, e-mailing, media sharing, text messaging, video gaming, online friendships, Facebook friendships, phone calling, and watching television in addition to four attitude-based subscales: positive attitudes, negative attitudes, technological anxiety/dependence, and attitudes toward task-switching. All subscales showed strong reliabilities and relationships between the subscales and pre-existing measures of daily media usage and Internet addiction were as predicted. Given the reliability and validity results, the new Media and Technology Usage and Attitudes Scale was suggested as a method of measuring media and technology involvement across a variety of types of research studies either as a single 60-item scale or any subset of the 15 subscales.
The privacy paradox states that online privacy concerns do not sufficiently explain online privacy behaviors on social network sites (SNSs). In this study, it was first asked whether the privacy paradox would still exist when analyzed as in prior research. Second, it was hypothesized that the privacy paradox would disappear when analyzed in a new approach. The new approach featured a multidimensional operationalization of privacy by differentiating between informational, social, and psychological privacy. Next to privacy concerns, also, privacy attitudes and privacy intentions were analyzed. With the aim to improve methodological aspects, all items were designed on the basis of the theory of planned behavior. In an online questionnaire with N = 595 respondents, it was found that online privacy concerns were not significantly related to specific privacy behaviors, such as the frequency or content of disclosures on SNSs (e.g., name, cell-phone number, or religious views). This demonstrated that the privacy paradox still exists when it is operationalized as in prior research. With regard to the new approach, all hypotheses were confirmed: Results showed both a direct relation and an indirect relation between privacy attitudes and privacy behaviors, the latter mediated by privacy intentions. In addition, also an indirect relation between privacy concerns and privacy behaviors was found, mediated by privacy attitudes and privacy intentions. Therefore, privacy behaviors can be explained sufficiently when using privacy attitudes, privacy concerns, and privacy intentions within the theory of planned behavior. The behaviors of SNS users are not as paradoxical as was once believed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
In this paper we discuss Augmented Reality (AR) displays in a general sense, within the context of a Reality-Virtuality (RV) continuum, encompassing a large class of "Mixed Reality" (MR) displays, which also includes Augmented Virtuality (AV). MR displays are defined by means of seven examples of existing display concepts in which real objects and virtual objects are juxtaposed. Essential factors which distinguish different Mixed Reality display systems from each other are presented, first by means of a table in which the nature of the underlying scene, how it is viewed, and the observer's reference to it are compared, and then by means of a three dimensional taxonomic framework, comprising: Extent of World Knowledge (EWK), Reproduction Fidelity (RF) and Extent of Presence Metaphor (EPM). A principal objective of the taxonomy is to clarify terminology issues and to provide a framework for classifying research across different disciplines.
To date, many important threads of information privacy research have developed, but these threads have not been woven together into a cohesive fabric. This paper provides an interdisciplinary review of privacy-related research in order to enable a more cohesive treatment. With a sample of 320 privacy articles and 128 books and book sections, we classify previous literature in two ways: (1) using an ethics-based nomenclature of normative, purely descriptive, and empirically descriptive, and (2) based on their level of analysis: individual, group, organizational, and societal. Based upon our analyses via these two classification approaches, we identify three major areas in which previous research contributions reside: the conceptualization of information privacy, the relationship between information privacy and other constructs, and the contextual nature of these relationships. As we consider these major areas, we draw three overarching conclusions. First, there are many theoretical developments in the body of normative and purely descriptive studies that have not been addressed in empirical research on privacy. Rigorous studies that either trace processes associated with, or test implied assertions from, these value-laden arguments could add great value. Second, some of the levels of analysis have received less attention in certain contexts than have others in the research to date. Future empirical studies — both positivist and interpretive — could profitably be targeted to these under-researched levels of analysis. Third, positivist empirical studies will add the greatest value if they focus on antecedents to privacy concerns and on actual outcomes. In that light, we recommend that researchers be alert to an overarching macro-model that we term APCO (Antecedents -> Privacy -> Concerns -> Outcomes).
This paper extends the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) to study acceptance and use of technology in a consumer context. Our proposed UTAUT2 incorporates three constructs into UTAUT: hedonic motivation, price value, and habit. Individual differences — namely, age, gender, and experience — are hypothesized to moderate the effects of these constructs on behavioral intention and technology use. Results from a two-stage online survey, with technology use data collected four months after the first survey, of 1,512 mobile Internet consumers supported our model. Compared to UTAUT, the extensions proposed in UTAUT2 produced a substantial improvement in the variance explained in behavioral intention (56 percent to 74 percent) and technology use (40 percent to 52 percent). The theoretical and managerial implications of these results are discussed.
The arrival of the "information age" holds great promise in terms of providing organizations with access to a wealth of information stores. However, the free exchange of electronic information also brings the threat of providing easy, and many times unwanted, access to personal information. Given the potential backlash of consumers, it is imperative that both researchers and practitioners understand the nature of consumers' concern for information privacy and accurately model the construct within evolving research and business contexts. Drawing upon a sample of 355 consumers and working within the framework of confirmatory factor analysis, this study examines the factor structure of the concern for information privacy (CFIP) instrument posited by Smith et al. (1996). Consistent with prior findings, the results suggest that each dimension of this instrument is reliable and distinct. However, the results also suggest that CFIP may be more parsimoniously represented as a higher-order factor structure rather than a correlated set of first-order factors. The implication of these results is that each dimension of CFIP as well as the supra dimension derived from the associations among dimensions are important in capturing CFIP and associating the construct to other important antecedents and consequences.
This research addresses the tensions that arise between the collection and use of personal information that people provide in the course of most consumer transactions, and privacy. In today's electronic world, the competitive strategies of successful firms increasingly depend on vast amounts of customer data. Ironically, the same information practices that provide value to organizations also raise privacy concerns for individuals. This study hypothesized that organizations can address these privacy concerns and gain business advantage through customer retention by observing procedural fairness: customers will be willing to disclose personal information and have that information subsequently used to create consumer profiles for business use when there are fair procedures in place to protect individual privacy. Because customer relationships are characterized by social distance, customers must depend on strangers to act on their behalf. Procedural fairness serves as an intermediary to bu...
As electronic commerce environments become more and more interactive, privacy is a matter of increasing concern. Many surveys have investigated households' privacy attitudes and concerns, revealing a general desire among Internet users to protect their privacy. To complement these questionnaire-based studies, we conducted an experiment in which we compared selfreported privacy preferences of 171 participants with their actual disclosing behavior during an online shopping episode. Our results suggest that current approaches to protect online users' privacy, such as EU data protection regulation or P3P, may face difficulties to do so effectively. This is due to their underlying assumption that people are not only privacy conscious, but will also act accordingly. In our study, most individuals stated that privacy was important to them, with concern centering on the disclosure of different aspects of personal information. However, regardless of their specific privacy concerns, most participants did not live up to their self-reported privacy preferences. As participants were drawn into the sales dialogue with an anthropomorphic 3-D shopping bot, they answered a majority of questions, even if these were highly personal. Moreover, different privacy statements had no effect on the amount of information disclosed; in fact, the mentioning of EU regulation seemed to cause a feeling of 'false security'. The results suggest that people appreciate highly communicative EC environments and forget privacy concerns once they are `inside the Web'.
We investigate the technology acceptance factors of the AR smartphone game Pokémon Go with a PLS-SEM approach based on the UTAUT2 model by Venkatesh et al. [1]. Therefore, we conducted an online study in Germany with 683 users of the game. Many other studies rely on the users’ imagination of the application’s functionality or laboratory environments. In contrast, we asked a relatively large user base already interacting in the natural environment with the application. Not surprisingly, the strongest predictor of behavioral intention
to play Pokémon Go is hedonic motivation, i.e. fun and pleasure due to playing the game. Additionaly, we find medium-sized effects of effort expectancy on behavioral intention, and of habit on behavioral intention and use behavior. These results imply that AR applications – besides needing to be easily integrable in the users’ daily life – should be designed in an intuitive and easily understandable way. We contribute to the understanding of the phenomenon of Pokémon Go by investigating established acceptance factors that potentially
The privacy calculus established that online self-disclosures are based on a cost-benefit tradeoff. For the context of SNSs, however, the privacy calculus still needs further support as most studies consist of small student samples and analyze self-disclosure only, excluding self-withdrawal (e.g., the deletion of posts), which is essential in SNS contexts. Thus, this study used a U.S. representative sample to test the privacy calculus' generalizability and extend its theoretical framework by including both self-withdrawal behaviors and privacy self-efficacy. Results confirmed the extended privacy calculus model. Moreover, both privacy concerns and privacy self-efficacy positively predicted use of self-withdrawal. With regard to predicting self-disclosure in SNSs, benefits outweighed privacy concerns; regarding self-withdrawal, privacy concerns outweighed both privacy self-efficacy and benefits.
Privacy and its protection is an important part of the culture in the USA and Europe. Literature in this field lacks empirical data from Japan. Thus, it is difficult– especially for foreign researchers – to understand the situation in Japan. To get a deeper understanding we examined the perception of a topic that is closely related to privacy: the perceived benefits of sharing data and the willingness to share in respect to the benefits for oneself, others and companies. We found a significant impact of the gender to each of the six analysed constructs.
The study examines differences in individual’s privacy concerns and beliefs about government surveillance in Italy and the United States. By incorporating aspects of multiple cultural theories, we argue that for both countries, the user’s decision to conduct e-commerce transactions on the Internet is influenced by privacy concerns, perceived need for government surveillance that would secure the Internet environment from fraud, crime and terrorism, and balancing concerns about government intrusion. An empirical model was tested using LISREL structural equation modeling and multigroup analysis. The results support the hypotheses with regard to direction and relative magnitude of the relationships. Italians exhibit lower Internet privacy concerns than individuals in the U.S., lower perceived need for government surveillance, and higher concerns about government intrusion. The relationships among the model constructs are also different across the two countries. Implications of the findings and directions for future work are discussed.
The possibility of a new $200-billion-plus industry has cloud security experts bracing for the ramifications.
Current approaches to measuring people’s everyday usage of technology-based media and other computer-related activities have proved to be problematic as they use varied outcome measures, fail to measure behavior in a broad range of technology-related domains and do not take into account recently developed types of technology including smartphones. In the present study, a wide variety of items, covering a range of up-to-date technology and media usage behaviors. Sixty-six items concerning technology and media usage, along with 18 additional items assessing attitudes toward technology, were administered to two independent samples of individuals, comprising 942 participants. Factor analyses were used to create 11 usage subscales representing smartphone usage, general social media usage, Internet searching, e-mailing, media sharing, text messaging, video gaming, online friendships, Facebook friendships, phone calling, and watching television in addition to four attitude-based subscales: positive attitudes, negative attitudes, technological anxiety/dependence, and attitudes toward task-switching. All subscales showed strong reliabilities and relationships between the subscales and pre-existing measures of daily media usage and Internet addiction were as predicted. Given the reliability and validity results, the new Media and Technology Usage and Attitudes Scale was suggested as a method of measuring media and technology involvement across a variety of types of research studies either as a single 60-item scale or any subset of the 15 subscales.
In this study we report on a classification scheme of intended e-services use based on levels of information exchange between users and Web sites. We refer to the broader concept of e-service as a service available via the Internet that completes tasks or conducts transactions. Each level varies by the amount and sensitivity of personal information exchanged in the process of seeking and obtaining information, services or goods during an online session. We then examine the relationships between two dimensions of privacy concerns (i.e., concerns related to finding personal information on the Internet and concerns related to the possible abuse of personal information submitted online) and the intended e-services use at each level of information exchange. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis validated the measures used on our theoretical model. The relationships between the privacy concerns and intended e-services use were then analyzed in a structural equation model. The results support the hypothesized relationships between the privacy concerns and four out of the five levels of information exchange. In addition the results show that privacy concerns increase as the amount and sensitivity of personal information submitted through Web sites increases.
Part one of this paper highlights how students today think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors, as a result of being surrounded by new technology. The author compares these “digital natives” with the older generation who are learning and adopting new technology naming them “digital immigrants”.
Impelled by the development of technologies that facilitate collection, distribution, storage, and manipulation of personal consumer information, privacy has become a “hot” topic for policy makers. Commercial interests seek to maximize and then leverage the value of consumer information, while, at the same time, consumers voice concerns that their rights and ability to control their personal information in the marketplace are being violated. However, despite the complaints, it appears that consumers freely provide personal data. This research explores what we call the “privacy paradox” or the relationship between individuals’ intentions to disclose personal information and their actual personal information disclosure behaviors.
This study examines whether gender differences are apparent in attitudes and behaviors toward advertising and marketing practices involving information gathering and privacy on-line. As part of a larger study, 889 internet users nationwide were surveyed using electronic mail. Results indicated that women and men differed significantly in their attitudes toward several practices, with women generally appearing more concerned about the effect the practice would have on their personal privacy. Additionally, the study found that men were likely to adopt behaviors to protect their privacy when they became concerned; women, however, rarely adopted protective behaviors. Implications for web advertisers are provided. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, Inc.
Information technology-enabled markets enhance retailers' ability to collect, aggregate, and transfer consumer information. These technological capabilities have raised concerns that this information could be used in ways the consumer would not anticipate or authorize. These concerns have been met with a variety of proposals including approaches placing the onus for protection on consumers, industry self-regulation, and government legislation of mandatory protec-tion standards. However, there has been no research to understand under what circumstances each of these regimes will produce optimal outcomes for customers, retailers, and society. Our research seeks to answer this question using analytic models of asymmetric information. Our results show that the optimal privacy protection regime depends critically on the characteristics of the market —the number of individuals who face a loss from privacy violations and the size of the loss they face. We find that regimes that place the onus on consumers are socially optimal when few people are sensitive to privacy violations or when the loss they face from privacy violations is low. Conversely, when many people care about privacy protection and the potential loss they face is high, mandatory standards are socially optimal. Finally, for intermediate values, seal-of-approval programs provide socially optimal privacy protection.
Although augmented reality (AR) was first conceptualized over 35 years ago (Sutherland, 1968), until recently the field was primarily concerned with the engineering challenges associated with developing AR hardware and software. Because AR is such a compelling medium with many potential uses, there is a need to further develop AR systems from a technology-centric medium to a user-centric medium. This transformation will not be realized without systematic user-based experimentation. This paper surveys and categorizes the user-based studies that have been conducted using AR to date. Our survey finds that the work is progressing along three complementary lines of effort: (1) those that study low-level tasks, with the goal of understanding how human perception and cognition operate in AR contexts, (2) those that examine user task performance within specific AR applications or application domains, in order to gain an understanding of how AR technology could impact underlying tasks, and (3) those that examine user interaction and communication between collaborating users.
Along with the development of scientific disciplines, namely social sciences, hypothesized relationships become increasingly more complex. Besides the examination of direct effects, researchers are more and more interested in moderating effects. Moderating effects are evoked by variables whose variation influences the strength or the direction of a relationship between an exogenous and an endogenous variable. Investigators using partial least squares path modeling need appropriate means to test their models for such moderating effects. We illustrate the identification and quantification of moderating effects in complex causal structures by means of Partial Least Squares Path Modeling. We also show that group comparisons, i.e. comparisons of model estimates for different groups of observations, represent a special case of moderating effects by having the grouping variable as a categorical moderator variable. We provide profound answers to typical questions related to testing moderating effects within PLS path models:1.
How can a moderating effect be drawn in a PLS path model, taking into account that the available software only permits direct effects?
2.
How does the type of measurement model of the independent and the moderator variables influence the detection of moderating effects?
3.
Before the model estimation, should the data be prepared in a particular manner? Should the indicators be centered (by having a mean of zero), standardized (by having a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one), or manipulated in any other way?
4.
How can the coefficients of moderating effects be estimated and interpreted?And, finally:
5.
How can the significance of moderating effects be determined?
Borrowing from the body of knowledge on modeling interaction effect within multiple regression, we develop a guideline on how to test moderating effects in PLS path models. In particular, we create a graphical representation of the necessary steps to take and decisions to make in the form of a flow chart. Starting with the analysis of the type of data available, via the measurement model specification, the flow chart leads the researcher through the decisions on how to prepare the data and how to model the moderating effect. The flow chart ends with the bootstrapping, as the preferred means to test significance, and the final interpretation of the model outcomes.
While the growth of business-to-consumer electronic commerce seems phenomenal in recent years, several studies suggest that a large number of individuals using the Internet have serious privacy concerns, and that winning public trust is the primary hurdle to continued growth in e-commerce. This research investigated the relative importance, when purchasing goods and services over the Web, of four common trust indices (i.e. (1) third party privacy seals, (2) privacy statements, (3) third party security seals, and (4) security features). The results indicate consumers valued security features significantly more than the three other trust indices. We also investigated the relationship between these trust indices and the consumer's perceptions of a marketer's trustworthiness. The findings indicate that consumers' ratings of trustworthiness of Web merchants did not parallel experts' evaluation of sites' use of the trust indices. This study also examined the extent to which consumers are willing to provide private information to electronic and land merchants. The results revealed that when making the decision to provide private information, consumers rely on their perceptions of trustworthiness irrespective of whether the merchant is electronic only or land and electronic. Finally, we investigated the relative importance of three types of Web attributes: security, privacy and pleasure features (convenience, ease of use, cosmetics). Privacy and security features were of lesser importance than pleasure features when considering consumers' intention to purchase. A discussion of the implications of these results and an agenda for future research are provided.
Trust is particularly important in online markets to facilitate the transfer of sensitive consumer information to online retailers. In electronic markets, various proposals have been made to facilitate these information transfers. We develop analytic models of hidden information to analyze the effectiveness of these regimes to build trust and their efficiency in terms of social welfare. We find that firms' ability to influence consumer beliefs about trust depends on whether firms can send unambiguous signals to consumers regarding their intention of protecting privacy. Ambiguous signals can lead to a breakdown of consumer trust, while the clarity and credibility of the signal under industry self-regulation can lead to enhanced trust and improved social welfare. Our results also indicate that although overarching government regulations can enhance consumer trust, regulation may not be socially optimal in all environments because of lower profit margins for firms and higher prices for consumers.
The study examines differences in individual’s privacy concerns and beliefs about government surveillance in Italy and the United States. By incorporating aspects of multiple cultural theories, we argue that for both countries, the user’s decision to conduct e-commerce transactions on the Internet is influenced by privacy concerns, perceived need for government surveillance that would secure the Internet environment from fraud, crime and terrorism, and balancing concerns about government intrusion. An empirical model was tested using LISREL structural equation modeling and multigroup analysis. The results support the hypotheses with regard to direction and relative magnitude of the relationships. Italians exhibit lower Internet privacy concerns than individuals in the U.S., lower perceived need for government surveillance, and higher concerns about government intrusion. The relationships among the model constructs are also different across the two countries. Implications of the findings and directions for future work are discussed.
Strategic uses of information technology based on personal information may raise privacy concerns among consumers if these applications do not reflect a common set of values. This study addresses what differentiates consumers who object to certain uses of personal information from those who do not object. Data collected by questionnaire from young consumers are used to identify a research approach for investigating attitudes toward the secondary use of personal information for direct marketing. Secondary information use occurs when personal information collected for one purpose Is subsequently used fora different purpose. While secondary information use is both widespread and legal, it may be viewed as an invasion of privacy when it occurs without the knowledge or consent of the consumer. The setting for the study is the use of point-of-sale data from a supermarket frequent shopper program to generate direct mail solicitations. Control emerges as a clear theme in differentiating individuals with positive overall attitudes toward secondary information use from those with negative attitudes. Study participants with positive attitudes are less concerned about privacy (measured as control over personal information), perceive shopping by mall as beneficial, and have coping strategies for dealing with unwanted mail. The results also suggest that theory related to categorization of strategic issues as positive-negative with outcomes that are controllable/uncontrollable provides a basis for understanding differences in the ways individuals perceive practices involving personal information. Future research should focus on the specific characteristics of secondary use practices, including the sensitivity of the information, its source, its perceived relevance to the original transaction, and whether disclosure reflects informed consent or results in a potentially harmful outcome to the individual.
Information privacy has been called one of the most important ethical issues of the informa-tion age. Public opinion polls show rising levels of concern about privacy among Americans. Against this backdrop, research into issues associated with information privacy is increasing. Based on a number of preliminary studies, it has become apparent that organizational practices, individuals' perceptions of these practices, and societal responses are inextricably linked in many ways. Theories regarding these relationships are slowly emerging. Unfortunately, researchers attempting to examine such relationships through confirmatory empirical approaches may be impeded by the lack of validated instruments for measuring individuals' concerns about organizational information privacy practices. To enable future studies in the information privacy research stream, we developed and validated an instrument that identifies and measures the primary dimensions of individuals' concerns about organizational information privacy practices. The development process included examinations of privacy literature; experience surveys and focus groups; and the use of expert judges. The result was a parsimonious 15-item instrument with four sub-scales tapping into dimensions of individuals' concerns about organizational information privacy practices. The instrument was rigorously tested and validated across several heterogenous populations, providing a high degree of confidence in the scales' validity, reliability, and generalizability.
Information privacy refers to the desire of individuals to control or have some influence over data about themselves. Advances in information technology have raised concerns about information privacy and its impacts, and have motivated Information Systems researchers to explore information privacy issues, including technical solutions to address these concerns. In this paper, we inform researchers about the current state of information privacy research in IS through a critical analysis of the IS literature that considers information privacy as a key construct. The review of the literature reveals that information privacy is a multilevel concept, but rarely studied as such. We also find that information privacy research has been heavily reliant on studentbased and USA-centric samples, which results in findings of limited generalizability. Information privacy research focuses on explaining and predicting theoretical contributions, with few studies in journal articles focusing on design and action contributions. We recommend that future research should consider different levels of analysis as well as multilevel effects of information privacy. We illustrate this with a multilevel framework for information privacy concerns. We call for research on information privacy to use a broader diversity of sampling populations, and for more design and action information privacy research to be published in journal articles that can result in IT artifacts for protection or control of information privacy.
While privacy is a highly cherished value, few would argue with the notion that absolute privacy is unattainable. Individuals make choices in which they surrender a certain degree of privacy in exchange for outcomes that are perceived to be worth the risk of information disclosure. This research attempts to better understand the delicate balance between privacy risk beliefs and confidence and enticement beliefs that influence the intention to provide personal information necessary to conduct transactions on the Internet. A theoretical model that incorporated contrary factors representing elements of a privacy calculus was tested using data gathered from 369 respondents. Structural equations modeling (SEM) using LISREL validated the instrument and the proposed model. The results suggest that although Internet privacy concerns inhibit e-commerce transactions, the cumulative influence of Internet trust and personal Internet interest are important factors that can outweigh privacy risk perceptions in the decision to disclose personal information when an individual uses the Internet. These findings provide empirical support for an extended privacy calculus model.
Generational differences are seen as the cause of wide shifts in our ability to engage with technologies
and the concept of the digital native has gained popularity in certain areas of policy and practice.
This paper provides evidence, through the analysis of a nationally representative survey in the UK,
that generation is only one of the predictors of advanced interaction with the Internet. Breadth of
use, experience, gender and educational levels are also important, indeed in some cases more important
than generational differences, in explaining the extent to which people can be defined as a digital native. The evidence provided suggests that it is possible for adults to become digital natives, especially in the area of learning, by acquiring skills and experience in interacting with information and communication technologies. This paper argues that we often erroneously presume a gap between educators and students and that if such a gap does exist, it is definitely possible to close it.
The role and feasibility of consumer's privacy and rationality in individual decision making is discussed. Theoretical and empirical approaches aimed at investgating the drivers and apparent inconsistencies of privacy decision making and behavior are presented. Theoritical groundings to critique the assumption of rationality in privacy decision making are also presented. An online survey for testing the rationality by analyzins individual knowledge, behavior and psychological deviations from rationality is also presented.
Pokémon Go May Not Truly Be Augmented Reality, and That’s
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Augmented Reality Gets Boost From Pokemon Go
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Pokemon Go or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying About The Definition And Love Augmented Reality
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What Pokémon Go’s Success Means for the Future of Augmented Reality
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Pokémon Go catches five new world records
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