Digital technologies and privacy: State of the art and research directions

Abstract

Digital technologies have transformed every aspect of marketing and have brought consumer privacy front and center of research and discourse over the last two decades. Whereas companies and consumers have arguably benefited through the availability and use of data made possible by digitalization, consumer privacy-related concerns raise compelling questions that researchers, companies, and policymakers are addressing. In this review paper, we review privacy related to digital technologies in marketing, highlighting the constantly evolving nature of the field. We provide an overview of the rich contributions made by the articles in the special issue on digital technologies and privacy, and the original insights they provide for researchers and practitioners in four domains-communication, retailing, pricing, and product personalization. We identify and outline future research directions in each of these four domains to expand our understanding of privacy at the intersection of psychology and marketing by motivating new scholarly research and providing actionable insights to managers and policymakers.

Gratifications in change of privacy? The response of four consumers' generational cohorts toward facial recognition technology in retail settings

“…In doing so, our findings add further evidence about consumers' acceptance of potential intrusive technologies in change of specific gratifications (utilitarian for the younger generations, and economic for the older ones). Finally, our study reasserts the importance of gratifications when addressing privacy, which was scarcely addressed in the past literature on consumers' privacy (Aboulnasr et al, 2022;Maseeh et al, 2021;Massara et al, 2021;Scarpi et al, 2022), further specifying the kind of gratifications (benefits) that the consumers of each generational cohort would expect to have in exchange. These gratifications would represent the trade-off to be provided by the retailer for the technology adoption success, as strongly encouraged by recent studies (Chen, Perry, et al, 2022;Chen, Sun, & Liu, 2022;Pizzi et al, 2022).…”

“…The main drivers of consumers' willingness to disclose personal information can be summarized as: (i) the characteristics of the requested information, (ii) the personal traits of consumer's involved in the disclosure, (iii) the relationship between the company and the consumer, (iv) the context of the inquiry for personal information, (v) perceived warmth (emerging from consumers' perception of retailer being sensitive or caring), and (vi) benefits such as specific contents, offers, discounts, rewards, and other benefits (Aboulnasr et al, 2022; Maseeh et al, 2021; Olivero & Lunt, 2004; Scarpi et al, 2022; White, 2004). Thus, consumers should perceive a value emerging from the exchange.…”

“…Despite the existing body of literature on the perceived costs and benefits of technology use when privacy concerns are involved (Aboulnasr et al, 2022; Gutierrez et al, 2019; Jai & King, 2016; Maseeh et al, 2021; Scarpi et al, 2022; Sun et al, 2015), the changes in gratifications when locus of control over the disclosure of personal data shifts from a retailer to a consumer have been under researched.…”

Explaining how algorithms work reduces consumers' concerns regarding the collection of personal data and promotes AI technology adoption

“…Second, our experimental approach establishes some degree of generalizability, because we conducted the experiments in different empirical contexts (smart band and streaming service). For further external validity, additional studies might test our hypotheses using other empirical contexts, platforms, or types of data (Scarpi et al, 2022).…”

“…In turn, we make three main contributions to the literature on privacy (e.g., Scarpi et al, 2022), data collection concerns (e.g., Hsu & Lin, 2016; Malhotra et al, 2004; Smith et al, 1996), and AI technology adoption (e.g., Mariani et al, 2022). First, rather than privacy inhibitors ensconced in a firm's privacy policies or characteristics (e.g., control, organizational privacy ethical care, brand credibility; Jain et al, 2022; Martin & Murphy, 2017; Mattison Thompson & Siamagka, 2022), we address privacy inhibitors as they relate to explaining AI algorithms.…”