نقش خستگی حریم خصوصی در رفتار حریم خصوصی آنلاین The role of privacy fatigue in online privacy behavior

1. Introduction Although Internet users can enjoy improved online services with the daily use of information communication technology (ICT), they may face threats associated with personal information misuse (Bansal & Gefen, 2010). For example, while mobile coupons based on users’ location information can provide highly personalized services, they may induce strong feelings of privacy intrusiveness (Sutanto, Palme, Tan, & Phang, 2013). Because digitized personal information can be easily stored, duplicated, conveyed, and integrated in online environments, risks to information privacy have become more significant in the digital age (Junglas, Johnson, & Spitzmüller, 2008). In spite of ongoing efforts to protect users’ privacy rights, data breach incidents have continued (Sen & Borle, 2015). 4,149 data breaches were reported in 2016, affecting over 4.2 billon records.1 500 million Yahoo user accounts were compromised in 2014, after a breach involving more than 1 billon user accounts in 2013.2 The frequent data breaches remind people that they are not in control of their online information. Privacy fatigue reflects a sense of weariness toward privacy issues, in which individuals believe that there is no effective means of managing their personal information on the Internet (Acquisti, Friedman, & Telang, 2006; Hargittai & Marwick, 2016). Prior research has shown that over-disclosure of personal information is commonplace among Internet users (Preibusch, Krol, & Beresford, 2013). Because there is good evidence that fatigued individuals are likely to reduce their decision making efforts (Levav, Heitmann, Herrmann, & Iyengar, 2010), such behavior can be considered as a manifestation of privacy fatigue among the users who are not willing to devote major efforts to managing the information to they share. Recognizing the gravity of information privacy threats, researchers have intensively investigated users’ privacy behaviors. Considerable emphasis has been placed on an individual’s subjective assessment of information privacy risk, referred to as online privacy concern (hereafter, “privacy concern”). Prior studies have demonstrated that privacy concern is an important antecedent of the adoption of ICT services (Dinev & Hart, 2006). Privacy concern, however, does not account for the range of users’ responses to privacy risk. For example, although repeated data breaches may increase privacy concern, the public is inclined to underestimate or ignore the risk (Ponemon, 2014). Frequent data breaches may make people feel as though they have no control over personal information, and ultimately drive them into a state of resignation about online privacy (Kwon & Johnson, 2015).