A Study of Online Privacy Policies of South African Retail Websites

Maraba, Jean; Da Veiga, Adéle

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-48855-9_32

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

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“…The study revealed, across the board, security vulnerabilities, low readability, lack of cookie consent as well as web-tracking. Finally, a study done on the privacy policies of 18 retail websites in South Africa analyzed if they met the standards set by relevant national guidelines and the requirements of the Protection of Personal Information Act and found that while all 18 websites had a privacy policy, some fell short of the required standards (Maraba et al, 2023).…”

Section: Previous Studies On Privacy Policiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Do companies try to make the contracts more understandable for their customers? These are all questions worth our time, albeit left largely unattended in scholarship in developing countries, barring a few exceptions which are discussed in greater length in the literature review section below (Chatsuwan et al, 2023;Jayed et al, 2020;Bareh, 2021;Maraba et al, 2023).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An analysis of privacy policies in Sri Lanka

Nanayakkara

2024

UCR

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This article focuses on privacy policies of websites and attempts to understand how they have been designed. A study looking at the privacy policies of US firms was conducted for the first time in 2016 by Professor Marotta-Wurgler. While the study provides a look into how the global north considers privacy, there is nascent scholarship in this regard for the global south. I look to the global south – Sri Lanka, in particular – to understand to what extent privacy and the well-being of consumers feature in designing privacy policies of various industries in the country. I look at 20 privacy policies across four industries, cloud computing, banking, supermarkets, and transport services. I conclude that while firms abide by some international standards even without legal obligation, there is room for improvement. There is little standardization within and across industries with international firms laying down higher privacy protections on average. The article finds most policies to be long and incomprehensible. I conclude that while incorporation of international privacy standards to varying degrees absent legal compulsion is admirable, there is more to be done to benefit the consumers for whose welfare privacy policies are drafted in the first place.

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Section: Previous Studies On Privacy Policiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%