Tamara Dinev’s research while affiliated with Florida Atlantic University and other places

This study develops a theoretical model, based on the theory of reasoned action and the concept of behavioral calculus, for understanding on-line advertiser behavior. Structural equation modeling and survey data are used to test hypotheses on how beliefs about on-line pay-per-click advertising shape the attitudes and subjective norms that lead advertisers to advertise on-line. The roles of trust, third-party tools, and support from search engine providers are explored. The study confirms that attitudes and subjective norms significantly influence intention to advertise on-line using the pay-per-click model, but trust in search engine providers and third-party monitoring and filtering tools are also found to have central roles. Trust can significantly increase the perceived benefits, in addition to its direct positive impact on attitude and subjective norms. The perceived effectiveness of third-party tools has a positive impact on attitude and trust, and thus on intention to advertise on-line.

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.

This U.S.-based research attempts to understand the relationships between users’ perceptions about Internet privacy concerns, the need for government surveillance, government intrusion concerns, and the willingness to disclose personal information required to complete online transactions. We test a theoretical model based on a privacy calculus framework and Asymmetric Information Theory using data collected from 422 respondents. Using LISREL, we found that privacy concerns have an important influence on the willingness to disclose personal information required to transact online. The perceived need for government surveillance was negatively related to privacy concerns and positively related to willingness to disclose personal information. On the other hand, concerns about government intrusion were positively related to privacy concerns. The theoretical framework of our study can be applied across other countries.

This study focuses on exploring Internet literacy and social awareness as antecedents to Internet users' attitudes towards government surveillance in the Internet environment. Previously developed instruments for Internet literacy, social awareness, perceived need for government surveillance, and government intrusion concerns have been employed in the study. The relationships are measured and explored through exploratory factor analysis (EFA) followed by linear regression models. Three of the four hypothesized relationships were found to be statistically significant - social awareness positively and Internet literacy negatively related to the perceived need for government surveillance, and Internet literacy positively related to the government intrusion concerns. The contribution of this research is in the attempt to explore surveillance attitudes in the post-9/11 American society. The study presents empirically tested relationships which are important for developing well-balanced policies of security protection and civil liberties.

Numerous public opinion polls reveal that individuals are quite concerned about threats to their information privacy. However, the current understanding of privacy that emerges is fragmented and usually discipline-dependent. A systematic understanding of individuals’ privacy concerns is of increasing importance as information technologies increasingly expand the ability for organizations to store, process, and exploit personal data. Drawing on information boundary theory, we developed an integrative model suggesting that privacy concerns form because of an individual’s disposition to privacy or situational cues that enable one person to assess the consequences of information disclosure. Furthermore, a cognitive process, comprising perceived privacy risk, privacy control and privacy intrusion is proposed to shape an individual’s privacy concerns toward a specific Web site’s privacy practices. We empirically tested the research model through a survey (n=823) that was administered to users of four different types of web sites: 1) electronic commerce sites, 2) social networking sites, 3) financial sites, and 4) healthcare sites. The study reported here is novel to the extent that existing empirical research has not examined this complex set of privacy issues. Implications for theory and practice are discussed, and suggestions for future research along the directions of this study are provided.

While there is a rich body of literature on user acceptance of technologies with positive outcomes, little is known about user behavior toward what we call protective technologies: information technologies that protect data and systems from disturbances such as viruses, unauthorized access, disruptions, spyware, and others. In this paper, we present the results of a study of user behavioral intention toward protective technologies based on the framework of the theory of planned behavior. We find that awareness of the threats posed by negative technologies is a strong predictor of user behavioral intention toward the use of protective technologies. More interestingly, in the presence of awareness, the influence of subjective norm on individual behavioral intention is weaker among basic technology users but stronger among advanced technology users. Furthermore, while our results are consistent with many of the previously established relationships in the context of positive technologies, we find that the determinants ¡°perceived ease of use¡± and ¡°computer self-efficacy¡± are no longer significant in the context of protective technologies. We believe that this result highlights the most significant difference between positive technologies and protective technologies: while the former are used for their designed utilities, for which usefulness and ease of use have a significant impact, the latter are used out of fear of negative consequences, for which awareness becomes a key determinant. We discussed the theoretical and practical implications of these findings. The findings of this study extend the theory of planned behavior to the context of protective technologies and shed insights on designing effective information security policies, practices, and protective technologies for organizations and society.

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.

Web spoofing that extract personal financial information of unwary web visitors is a great threat to undermine the consumers confidence in Internet shopping and banking. Web spoofing involves construction of a fake Web site similar to legitimate Web site and use of phishing to extract sensitive personal and financial information of online users for illegal use of retried data. According to the US Federal Trade Commission's annual report, Web spoofing has victimized nearly 10 million Americans with costs to business and consumers of almost $ 53 billion in 2003, about 79 % higher than year 2002. Web spoofing can be controlled by increasing public awareness and development of technologies that help consumers identify spoof sites. Online user should never log into a Web site by accessing it from a link in an email message or on an untrusted Web site such as a discussion board or chat room. Online user should open the browser and type the URL on the address bar.

This study examines cross-cultural differences beliefs related to e-commerce use for Italy and the United States. We argue that for both cultures, the user's decision to make an online purchase is simultaneously influenced by a set of contrary factors. These include decision facilitators such as propensity to trust and institutional trust, and decision inhibitors such as perceived risk and privacy concerns. We argue that substantial cultural differences exist that affect the above factors and the relationships among them. We use Hofstede's cultural theory and Fukuyama's theory of trust and social capital, along with emic factors important for the Italian society, to develop the study's propositions. The hypotheses were empirically tested using LISREL structural equation modeling and multigroup analysis. The results revealed that the Italian society exhibited lower propensity to trust, institutional trust, privacy concerns, and higher perceived risk. The relationships between institutional trust and e-commerce use, privacy concerns and e-commerce use, and perceived risk and institutional trust are all weaker for Italy. The relationship between perceived risk and privacy concerns is stronger for Italy. The paper's major contribution is in validating an important model of e-commerce use across two cultures and showing the moderating effects of culture.European Journal of Information Systems (2006) 15, 389–402. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ejis.3000590