Empirical research in consumer information privacy concern online: a review and critical assessment

Abstract

Marketers, in search of profitable customer relationships, require increasing amounts of personal information, yet consumers regularly express concern about their privacy. Investigations into consumer privacy concern in offline contexts exhibit inconsistencies in specification of a privacy concern construct. Application of those fragmented understandings to new contexts such as online transactions has resulted in confusion, an inability to compare results and irregular nomological networks. The objective of this paper is to provide an integrative review of empirical research on consumer online information privacy concern to provide conceptual clarification in order to facilitate future research into online privacy concerns.