Findings


We organize our findings into three major sections. After a brief discussion of the extent of Internet usage amongst our participants , we address: (1) self-perceived technological competence, (2) attitudes toward invasion of privacy, and (3) coping strategies associated with the level of self-perceived technological competence. In each section, we have synthesized insights gained from the six focus groups. We have also attempted to relate participants' levels of self-perceived technological competence to the coping strategies they report having adopted.

Internet Usage and Online Experiences

Focus group participants reported using the Internet for a number of activities, including searching for information, purchasing products and services, and comparing prices. Students, both male and female, indicated a wider variety of usage including online banking, news, and chat and game rooms. In addition, female participants (both older and younger) indicated that they used the Net to connect with old friends and extended family. Their online purchases were more in the category of hard-to-find products or specialized products for hobbies. Male focus group participants talked more about using the Internet as a means of finding good deals. Males also made more references to use of the Internet at their place of work. Two respondents from the younger male group and one from the male student group had been victims of credit card number theft.

What is Online Privacy?

Respondents were uniform in their definitions of online privacy. Across all groups, they defined it as being given a choice with respect to providing information, being given notice of the company's information practices, having access to their information with the choice of altering or deleting the information, keeping their personal information secure , and not selling it to a third party without their permission . These aspects of online privacy are consistent with prior research and the FTC's core principles to guide online content providers' development of privacy policy (FTC, 1998). There were only two notable differences between the terms used by the participants and the language used by the FTC. First, the FTC is concerned with the issue of redress, while the focus group participants did not mention this term. Second, the participants referred to the concept of permission, while the FTC does not use this term in the same sense. The latter reinforces the principles reported in the literature on permission marketing (Godin, 1999; Krishnamurthy, 2001). Respondents, particularly females, were very indignant about receiving mail from companies that they had not heard of. A consistent theme was, 'Don't call me, I'll call you.'

Self Perceived Technological Competence

We define self-perceived technological competence (SPTC) as a subjective self-rating of how much the person knows , and how comfortable they feel with the technology. The level of SPTC appears to differentiate the online behaviors and privacy concerns of consumers. These differences between the low and high SPTC groups are outlined in Table 10-2.

Table 10-2: Key differences between high and low SPTC consumers
 

Low SPTC

High SPTC

Privacy Concern

High

Low

Perceived control

No control

No control

Solutions preferred

Technical

Personal responsibility

 

Regulatory

Education

Comfort level

More comfortable with off-line interaction

See similar risks in off-line and online

   

interactions

Coping strategies

Avoidance

Acceptance of risk

 

Denial

Reliance on system

 

Transference of responsibility

Use rating agencies

   

Technological fascination

Attitudes towards privacy invasion

Fear

Willingness to take risks in order to get the benefits of the Internet

 

Paradox of needing the Internet, yet disliking it

 

There were some obvious differences in acquaintance with technology between some focus group participants. These differences were partly the result of the participants' job experiences. Three of the men had technical education and training, and were in charge of computer networks and security at their workplace. These participants obviously had objective knowledge, i.e., of computer technology (Alba and Hutchinson, 1999). However, our aim was to assess their comfort and competence with the technology rather than their objective knowledge. Accordingly, we asked focus group participants to talk about their level of competence with what they were doing when online. Technological competence seemed to be related to the amount of experience with the Internet (denoted by the total amount of time spent online and number of Web sites visited). Even respondents who claimed to have a fairly high level of SPTC said that they would not know much about firewalls or encryption codes. However, they felt they had enough experience to know a good site from a bad one, and to take some precautions in protecting themselves .

C. Female; 18-22 years : I think I know enough about technology to know that I am not safe. I know that somebody could hack in and take my information. It is just me feeling like okay, I can deal with the risk.

They also acknowledged that because of their wider use of the Internet, they were exposed to more risk than people who limit their usage. However, this awareness of their exposure seemed to make them more vigilant and proactive about protecting their privacy.

Interviewer: Do you think technologically competent people can better protect themselves from an invasion of privacy?

M. Male; 18-22 years: I think that technologically competent people have the ability to make themselves more secure on the Internet. But I think the less technologically competent you are, the more likely you are to protect yourself just because you are more skeptical. I mean, my mother doesn't know anything about the computer, she also refuses to go on there and shop and that sort of thing.

Among women of all age segments, familiarity with the Internet seemed to be an important factor in determining their level of technological competence. Three of the respondents who used computers at work quite extensively (the first woman was an older graduate student, the second woman runs an online business along with her husband, and the third woman uses it for research) expressed higher levels of SPTC. Correspondingly, they were less concerned about their privacy compared to the other women in their respective groups.

Due perhaps to the fact that the women in our focus groups were relatively less tech- savvy, they displayed a tendency to view others (including their children) as being more knowledgeable about computers than themselves. Accordingly, women participants felt that members of the younger generation were more capable of protecting their privacy, because they seemed to know more about computers.

J. Female; 30-45 years: I kind of feel like a dinosaur. So I don't really feel like I should be telling the kids who have grown up in this environment how it works, because it really is a new language.

M. Female; 30-45 years: I think my son is more capable of protecting himself buying on eBay than I can.

B. Female; 46-55 years: I am just totally ignorant of computers, of how they work and operate . My nephews can go in there and build computers and do all this stuff.

Male focus group participants, on the other hand, felt that their children were more at risk because they did not know enough about protecting themselves.

R. Male; 30-45 years: Both of my kids are in middle school, and they like to do the online chat. I won't let them register with what they are putting in. I set up the filters and things like that. Everything they do on the Internet is monitored , and the computer in our house is in our bedroom.

M. Male; 30-45 years: My son is a college student. A lot of times he will put too much personal information on a Web site, and since we share the same credit card, it comes to me. He does not understand privacy issues and things like that.

The college students in our focus groups rated their SPTC to be fairly high, not because of hardware knowledge, but because of their extensive experience with using the Internet, and their usage of multiple features of the Net.

V. Female; 18-22 years: I think my experiences with technology have made me a little bit more able to protect myself because once you are online for a while, you don't do various things online. You know what is a trap. You begin to realize who is going to use your information. Who can I trust, who can I not trust.

As reported earlier, people who had a higher level of SPTC consistently displayed an awareness of their exposure to risk. They were more comfortable about assuming this risk, and displayed less anxiety toward it than people with lower levels of SPTC.

Levels of SPTC (and hence, comfort with using the Internet) are also influenced by media reports on privacy invasion and experiences reported by friends and co-workers . Older and younger women confessed that their fears had been heightened by movies like The Matrix. People with higher SPTC relied more on their personal experiences. Corresponding to levels of SPTC, people also differed in their coping strategies. Participants with higher SPTC reported use of proactive strategies to protect their privacy. Those with lower SPTC tended to shy away from online usage or cut it down to the bare minimum. These coping strategies are discussed in greater detail subsequently.

In summary, we found that people's level of comfort with respect to online privacy was guided in large part by the extent of their usage of the Net, both in number of hours spent and the number of different activities they engaged in. A larger number of the non- student women of all ages fell into the low SPTC group. This may be partly due to the limited time they spend on the Net for non-work-related activities. (We recognize that these findings could be an artifact of our sample.) The less participants felt they knew about the Net, the more susceptible they seemed to be to media and peer influences.

Attitudes Toward Invasion of Privacy

All respondents indicated that Internet usage automatically created a threat to their privacy, and that there was no control once you were online. The threats to privacy cited were possibility of credit card fraud, Spam, cookies monitoring online activity, requesting and selling personal information to third parties, monitoring of online activity at work, and eavesdropping of online activity by other people at work or in a public place such as a computer lab or Internet caf . While all these were cited as possible threats, the groups differed in the seriousness of each threat, the differences stemming from some consumer characteristics and the level of SPTC. We will now discuss attitudes regarding online privacy for each of these perceived threats.

Spam and Junk Mail

The groups differed along gender lines in their reaction to Spam. While the male groups indicated that Spam was an annoyance rather than an invasion of their privacy, females exhibited very strong antipathy to Spam. This was more pronounced in the older and younger female groups. Respondents in these groups felt more comfortable with telemarketers than with online transactions. Overall, older and younger women felt that one-on-one interactions reduced the possibility of privacy invasion because they felt they 'knew' the person they were dealing with. On the Internet, women felt that not knowing the person with whom they were interacting represented the greatest threat to their privacy and comfort levels.

J. Female; 46-55 years: I think it is just a total inequality between an individual sitting at a laptop or computer and a huge entity who just wants to send Spam. It is one person against this huge unknown thing.

R. Female; 30-45 years: You don't know who is out there.

Men, on the other hand, took comfort in the anonymity provided by the fact that they were just one in a sea of millions of people engaging in online transactions.

J. Male; 46-65 years: The chances that someone is looking at you are infinitesimal . It is not something I worry about.

F. Male; 46-65 years: I agree with J's sense of anonymity. I know that when I am actually online, I am usually dialing through a modem onto a very large server at the university. And at best somebody trying to crack backwards could find out what the server is, but not specifically me. The odds are definitely in my favor, so why worry about them?

The focus of anonymity in male participants was diametrically opposite to that of females. Females were worried about the anonymity of the person(s) who could potentially access their information. Males perceived themselves to be anonymous and used that as a cognitive assurance of their lowered risk of privacy invasion.

Women participants also felt that their comfort levels were much higher when the call or online shopping decision was initiated by them, rather than when they were the recipients of unsolicited e-mail from an anonymous source. This is partly because they feel they are 'in control' when they are dealing with just one person. It appears that these women consider Spam to be an invasion of their privacy because the concept of their 'time and personal space' seems to be very dominant. They resented having to spend part of their limited time on the computer in cleaning up unwanted e-mail and closing pop-up ad windows . Women seem to be more task-oriented with respect to the Net for personal use, and are therefore more sensitive to intrusions, which are seen as invasions of their privacy, rather than as mere annoyances.

B. Female; 46-55 years: You're in a personal space, you're either there to do work or research. And all of a sudden this annoying thing takes you out of your life space and they have no right to intrude. It's like somebody knocking on your door every five minutes and having to go to the door and look. I have a very limited amount of time, and to tell you the truth, I don't get on the Internet that much anymore. I can't deal with it. I haven't got the time to get through.

I. Female; 46-55 years: It is a kind of irreverence for my time and the space on my machine.

R. Female; 30-45 years: It seems like baggage that comes for a person who has a limited amount of time. I have 45 minutes a day to do this, and 15 minutes is spent in cleaning up after them.

In contrast, non-student males (and students of both sexes) felt that it was easier to get rid of Spam than a telemarketer. Those respondents who had greater objective knowledge of computers used Spam blocking software or had firewalls set up to protect themselves. The constant theme that we heard from the women was the emphasis on the constraints on their time. The women participating in our focus groups possibly had multiple tasks at home, and were therefore limited in the time they could spend online. It is also reflective of the fact that women tend to engage in online activities for personal needs at home, while the men reported online usage throughout the day. The only concern with respect to Spam that men expressed was the possibility that their co-workers and supervisors might judge them based on the type of Spam received. (For example, if they received Spam from purveyors of pornography, they were afraid their co-workers might misconstrue this as evidence that they had been to pornographic Web sites in the past.)

Students, however, did not split along gender lines. Both male and females students considered Spam to be an annoyance, but they also felt that it was easy to get rid of. They felt it was okay to get Spam as a result of using free Web sites. They uniformly felt that paid Web sites should do a better job of filtering Spam, and not giving their personal information to third parties. The general consensus was that, as students, they did not have much to lose, and hence, it did not bother them very much.

Financial Security and Credit Cards

Male and female students were quite distinct from the other groups in that they used the Net for online banking - an activity that provides the highest possible liability to privacy invasion. When questioned about possible privacy concerns, they said that they had been burned a couple of times. However, they have learned from their experiences about being more careful in parting with information, as well as selecting sites that can protect them. There appears to be a considerable exchange of information among peers regarding safe and unsafe sites. These respondents felt that the benefits of transacting online far outweighed the possible threats to their privacy. Along similar lines, non-student male participants took comfort in the assurance that credit card companies would protect them against misuse. Some of them had had credit card companies call them on the telephone about questionable transactions. This has reinforced their faith in the ability of the 'system' to protect them. Two people have had their credit card numbers lifted by unauthorized users. While this has made them more vigilant, it has not stopped their online activities. The respondents with higher levels of SPTC also talked about specific measures they used to protect themselves. These include reserving a card exclusively for online transactions, reading some part of the Web sites' privacy policies, looking for third-party assurances of security like the lock sign, and choosing sites with reputable brand names (Grabner-Kraeuter, 2002). The single factor that distinguished respondents with high SPTC from those with low SPTC with respect to credit card privacy threats was the acceptance of risk in both off-line and online scenarios. Those people who dealt with computer security at work also looked for sites that had encryption.

S. Female; 30-45 years: I am not worried about giving out my credit card number. We use a credit card that sits there, taped to the side of the computer. That is only for computer orders.

Interviewer: M talked about looking for encryption. How about the rest of you?

B. Male; 30-45 years: I am not sure if I look for anything because I have an acceptance of the risk that is out there. M's is just a totally different way of thinking about it. I know the risk, and have accepted it. Just as when I go into a restaurant and hand the waiter my credit card. They have as much access to my credit card data as does someone who works in tech support on amazon.com. I have accepted that risk. And I use my credit card, not my bank card, because I know I have protection on my credit card.

Coping Strategies

We have established that consumers' attitudes to privacy invasion and their relative privacy concerns are determined, in part, by the self-perceived technological competence. These privacy concerns are associated with varying levels of anxiety and stress which configures the individual's comfort zone (Figure 10-1). The next question is about the strategies that consumers undertake to cope with the threats to their privacy and to provide a balance to their place in the comfort zone. Table 10-2 lists the strategies we identified, and the following discussion elaborates on these coping strategies. (Hitherto, most of the research on privacy concerns has focused on behavioral strategies.) All respondents reported falsification of information, relying on trusted sites, and changing e-mail addresses when the volume of Spam increased to uncomfortable levels (Phelps, Nowak and Ferrell, 2000; Sheehan and Hoy, 2000).

Avoidance

The notion of avoidance in response to stresses of technology has been discussed before (Mick and Fournier, 1998; Rogers, 1995). These avoidance strategies include abandoning the technology or declining to own it. With respect to privacy concerns, people with very high concern for their privacy (low SPTC) talked about how they had reduced their online activity, and have resorted to picking up the phone instead. In one case, the stress was so high that she has often abandoned her Internet session.

J. Female; 30-45 years: I don't shop a lot online these days. I probably don't because the more I do, I think I am more afraid of getting all this garbage. It is probably not the best thing in the world, I mean, there are probably good things I could be buying off the Internet. But I am not going to be there.

I. Female; 46-55 years: I specifically go in for a purpose, either business-related or to check my e-mail, or shop. I go on and I get off. I feel that since I limit it [time on the Internet], I don't worry. I limit how much I use it.

C. Female; 46-55 years: I limit what I purchase, and my time [online], so that I don't worry.

Transference

Respondents low in SPTC reported relying on husbands, children, or anyone who they felt was more competent than themselves to make the actual purchase, or to install software that would protect them.

J. Female; 30-45 years: My husband has installed a buffer or something like that, so we don't get a lot [of Spam]. But every once in a while one will get through, I don't know how, and he goes back and redoes it or something because he knows far more about it than I do.

Transference of responsibility to others helped them to deal with the fact that they were on the low end of the comfort zone. Another form of transference was through association with a prestigious institution to gain the illusion of privacy. B said that she uses a DSL provided by the local state university, and that helped her to feel safe. Similar examples of transference were seen in the form of reliance on 'the little lock sign.' Transference was also evident in that this group felt that there should be more government regulation and greater responsibility taken by banks and other financial institutions in protecting them.

A. Female; 46-55 years: Have an intermediary. Like if there was a credit bureau that you could actually go through them and they have the information, or like my bank. I could say, call my bank and get the information. The bank can take the burden for me.

C. Female; 30-45 years: Legislation could help. There are laws that could be put out there to protect you from different things.

Denial

Some of the respondents noted that they ignore their feelings of fear. J, an artist who uses the Net to make specialized purchases for her craft work said:

J. Female; 30-45 years: It's like watching a play or film and you have suspended disbelief for a certain period of time. You have to or else you will go mad.

Coupled with the denial is an acknowledgment that the conveniences of the Net make it a necessary evil. These views were expressed more often by people with low levels of SPTC. In contrast, people with higher levels of SPTC also agreed that there was a certain inevitability to loss of privacy when you are online. However, instead of being in denial or suspending belief, they exhibited acceptance of the risk. We discuss this strategy next.

Acceptance

The group that reported acceptance of risk and finding ways to deal with it were the ones who were most comfortable with using the computer and the Internet. These people assume that there is no privacy once they are online. They seem to take reassurance in the belief that the system will protect them and that there are means of institutional redress or recourse in case someone should use their credit cards for unauthorized transactions. They also believe that their risk online is no greater than their off-line risk. Evidence of these feelings came from several non-student males, students of both sexes, and some women participants, all of whom exhibited higher levels of SPTC.

W. Male; 46-65 years: It doesn't bother me. There is a higher risk giving a credit card to a waiter, or when I use it at a gas pump. But one thing I do not do is have my credit card be part of my record so that I don't have to enter it every time. I never do that. I don't think that is a smart thing to do. There is no reason to necessarily put yourself at risk, but I still think the risk is pretty low.

J. Male; 46-65 years: It is not the business's fault, you know, that's just the risk of being online. It's just like someone picking your wallet on the subway .

B. Male; 30-45 years: Level of privacy is not the issue recourse is. I don't think we are out here as puppets operated by some big system here when somebody gets our information they use it in this wicked way in which we have no recourse. I feel very confident that if somebody takes advantage of me, I would be able to find that out and that I have legitimate recourse. It is like Sears. If your product doesn't work, you take it back and they will give you a new product.

Interviewer: Do you ever think about the possibility of your credit card number being stolen?

C. Male; 18-22 years: I do, ever since my identity was stolen, and that had nothing to do with the Internet. So I guess I don't make a connection with that. But the reality is that if someone wants to harm you, whether it be financially or whatever, it's gonna happen. I rely on the checks and balances . If I am gonna put my credit card number out there, then I am going to be diligent enough to check to make sure no one's charging stuff against me. If they are, you call and handle it. I guess that is just the way it works if you are going to play the game.

People who were accepting of the risk were also the ones who felt that education was necessary to make people aware of the dangers of the net. Acceptance of personal responsibility, rather than transference or denial, was the guiding principle for these people, all of whom expressed higher levels of SPTC. Having their online activity tracked does not seem to worry them because they are more fascinated by the fact that someone can actually do it. In cognizance, they also say that people should be aware that their online activity is being tracked and therefore be careful about the information they put out.

V. Female; 30-45 years: Loss of privacy is all over - not just online, and hence not so worrisome. You can't do anything about it.

A. Male; 30-45 years: It's like when you sign a waiver . It's all in the realm of those things. It's an accepted risk.

Interviewer: So are you saying that there are people who are not being careful enough about their information?

R. Male; 30-45 years: They are being as careful as they want to be. They decided to put out all their information. They crossed the line, and that was their decision.

K. Male; 30-45 years: Education. Help the curve. Help to stop the pattern. Some people have no clue when they come to that machine - what they are getting and what they are giving out. They need assistance to call somebody when they are in trouble.

Technological Fascination

Going one step beyond acceptance, a few participants expressed the view that sacrificing privacy was a relatively inconsequential price to pay in order to be on the cutting edge of technological innovation. Some participants also expressed confidence that privacy protection would get better with improvements in firewall technologies and implementation of stricter standards. The following verbatim comments capture the essence of these sentiments:

C. Male; 30-45 years: We'd be fools not to use it. It's just efficiency, it is great. I want to use it. Gosh, with these Palm Pilots and things you can hook up to your lap tops and cell phones, they have made it so efficient that you want to use it.

M. Male; 30-45 years: The efficiency of the Internet just amazes me. Now you can communicate with the world. Amazing.

R. Male; 30-45 years: I think it [privacy] will improve with time as technology and standards improve.




Contemporary Research in E-marketing (Vol. 1)
Agility and Discipline Made Easy: Practices from OpenUP and RUP
ISBN: B004V9MS42
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 164

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