

In particular, IPC is viewed as a dyadic relationship between an individual and an online entity, which can either be a particular website or websites in general. This definition of IPC is an extension of the traditional concept of information privacy concern, which refers to an individual’s perception of fairness within the context of information privacy (Campbell 1997), to the online environment. Specific to the online context, Internet privacy concern (IPC) is defined as an individual’s concern about possible loss of privacy due to voluntary or surreptitious information disclosure to websites (Dinev and Hart 2005).

#UNETHICAL PHOTO PRIVACY INVASION FREE#
Privacy concern has traditionally been a topic in business ethics research (e.g., Ashworth and Free 2006 Hajli and Lin 2016 Shaw 2003 Zhou and Piramuthu 2015).
#UNETHICAL PHOTO PRIVACY INVASION DRIVERS#
Hence, it is imperative for online companies to understand the drivers and inhibitors of individuals’ privacy concerns so as to formulate strategies to alleviate such concerns.

The growing privacy concern has caused consumers to make serious changes in their behavior, such as closing social media accounts and making fewer online purchases (CIGI 2018). According to recent surveys, 91% of consumers agreed that they have lost control of their personal information and data (Rainie 2016), and 70% of consumers are more concerned about their privacy today than they were a few years ago (IDC 2017). Such privacy concerns are further evident in the multimillion dollars lawsuits against Twitter (Roberts 2017), Facebook (Meyer 2017), and Google (Ruddick 2017). Data breaches of large commercial databases, such as Facebook and Sony Pictures (Chaykowski 2018 Lewis 2014), also exacerbate consumers’ privacy concerns. Online consumers are increasingly concerned about their privacy, as their personal information and online activities are often automatically tracked and analyzed without their consent or knowledge (CIGI 20). With the advances in Internet technologies, such as data mining tools, personalized marketing services, and ubiquitous electronic commerce applications, the collection and analysis of personal information are becoming rampant. The findings provide an integrated understanding of the formation of Internet privacy concern. A follow-up moderation analysis shows that the individual factors (i.e., previous privacy invasion experience, risk avoidance personality, and Internet knowledge) moderate the effects of the information management factor (i.e., information sensitivity) and the interaction management factors (i.e., privacy protection and social presence). We conducted an analysis of unobserved heterogeneity to confirm the significance of these factors. Specifically, familiarity with government legislation, Internet knowledge, benefit of information disclosure, privacy protection, and social presence reduce Internet privacy concern, while individuals’ previous privacy invasion experience, risk avoidance personality, and sensitivity of information requested by websites increase Internet privacy concern. The results show that the factors under all four dimensions are significant in the formation of Internet privacy concern. We tested our model using data from an online survey of 2417 individuals in Hong Kong. Applying the Multidimensional Development Theory to the online environment, we identify the important factors under four dimensions-i.e., environmental, individual, information management, and interaction management. This paper investigates the drivers and inhibitors of Internet privacy concern.
