No abstract

Online privacy notices are intended to promote consumer choice and reduce the risks of disclosing personal information online. However, these effects result only if consumers read and use the information contained in the notices. This study used an online survey of 2,468 U.S. adult Internet users to investigate why online consumers read privacy notices across a variety of situations. We found that reading is related to concern for privacy, positive perceptions about notice comprehension, and higher levels of trust in the notice. This suggests that effective privacy notices serve an important function in addressing risk issues related to e-commerce. We further found that reading privacy notices is only one element in an overall strategy consumers use to manage the risks of disclosing personal information online.

This research examines how people manage online personal brands in a Web 2.0 context. Using a novel mixed-method approach and consenting participants, the authors generated digital brand audits of 12 people and asked undergraduate students and a human resources professional to judge their profiles (made anonymous), both qualitatively and quantitatively. After comparing these evaluations with participants’ own judgments of their online profiles, the authors conducted long interviews to understand how people manage online profiles and feel about others’ judgment of the content they post. According to these results, people engage in personal branding, though their efforts are often misdirected or insufficient. They consider personal online branding challenging, especially, during life changes or when managing multiple audiences.

No abstract

The authors conceptualize direct mail as an implied social contract between marketers and consumers. Four attributes constitute the direct mail social contract: volume, targeting, compensation, and permission. Several proposals have been advanced in an effort to protect consumer privacy in the direct mail environment. These proposals would directly or indirectly result in changes in the levels of the social contract attributes. The authors use a conjoint study to measure the trade-offs consumers make among these attributes. The results suggest consumers want improved targeting efficiency and lower mail volume, and they are not willing to pay for these improvements. These findings suggest that consumers consider several attributes in their evaluation of direct mail social contracts. Proposals to alter the direct mail environment must consider all these attributes in concert.