An Examination of Privacy Concerns and Trust Entities in Determining Willingness to Disclose Personal Information on a Social Networking Site

Transcription

1 Association for Information Systems AIS Electronic Library (AISeL) AMCIS 2010 Proceedings Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS) An Examination of Privacy Concerns and Trust Entities in Determining Willingness to Disclose Personal Information on a Social Networking Site Janice Lo Baylor University, janice_lo@baylor.edu Cindy Riemenschneider Baylor University, C_Riemenschneider@baylor.edu Follow this and additional works at: Recommended Citation Lo, Janice and Riemenschneider, Cindy, "An Examination of Privacy Concerns and Trust Entities in Determining Willingness to Disclose Personal Information on a Social Networking Site" (2010). AMCIS 2010 Proceedings This material is brought to you by the Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS) at AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). It has been accepted for inclusion in AMCIS 2010 Proceedings by an authorized administrator of AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). For more information, please contact elibrary@aisnet.org.

2 An Examination of Privacy Concerns and Trust Entities in Determining Willingness to Disclose Personal Information on a Social Networking Site Janice Lo Baylor University janice_lo@baylor.edu Cindy Riemenschneider Baylor University c_riemenschneider@baylor.edu ABSTRACT Why does wide incongruence exist between people s personal privacy concerns and their willingness to reveal personal information on social networking sites? We conducted an online survey to examine how people s Internet privacy concern and their trust regarding Facebook, friends, and all Facebook users impacted their willingness to share personal information with each of the three entities. Results show that people have different trust beliefs about the entities and these beliefs differentially impact their willingness to share with each entity. It was found that while privacy concern does impact people s willingness to share information with Facebook and all Facebook users, it does not appear to significantly impact people s willingness to share with their own Facebook friends. In addition, while trust in Facebook and trust in one s Facebook friends positively influences willingness to share with each of the two entities, respectively, trust in all users does not necessarily influence people s willingness to share in general. Thus, the study demonstrates that the privacy-trust issue on social networking sites as it relates to information sharing is potentially more complex than in the general e-commerce context. Keywords Social networking sites, trust, privacy concern, Facebook. INTRODUCTION In recent years, the popularity of social networking sites has risen tremendously. Although past research has consistently revealed that online users are generally concerned about the privacy of their personal information (e.g. 93% of respondents participating in a 2008 USC survey; USC Center for the Digital Future, 2009), an astonishing number of them are still joining social networking sites and revealing personal information. For example, in a study of 205 college students on Facebook and MySpace, Fogel and Nehmad (2009) found that 82% of those with an online profile use their real names and 86% include a picture of themselves on their profiles. Additionally, 74% of users allow anyone to view their profiles (Fogel & Nehmad, 2009). Thus, while online users are concerned about the privacy of their personal information, they are nevertheless willing to share this information on social networking sites. Why does such incongruence exist between people s personal privacy concerns and their willingness to reveal personal information on social networking sites? Some researchers suggest that Internet trust can outweigh concerns over personal privacy (e.g. Dinev & Hart, 2006). However, a search of the literature on social networking sites reveals that few studies have examined why people are willing to share personal information. Moreover, fewer studies have explored the privacy-trust issue in relation to people s willingness to share personal information. While the relationship between trust and willingness to share personal information has been examined in the e-commerce literature, this relationship is different in the social networking site context because various levels of information sharing are built into this context. Whereas trust in the e-commerce context typically involves trust in one online vendor, the concept of trust and information sharing in the social networking context involves multiple entities (e.g. the networking site, one s friends, and all other users). Privacy concerns might diversely influence people s willingness to disclosure information for different entities. We build on the privacy-trust foundation in this privacy study in an attempt to further explain users willingness to share personal information with different entities on social networking sites. Drawing on extant e-commerce studies involving privacy and trust, the theory of planned behavior, and the trust literature, we propose a research model depicting privacy concern and trust for three entities in determining users willingness to share personal information. The first trust entity is an Proceedings of the Sixteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Lima, Peru, August 12-15,

3 individual user s trust in the social networking site itself; the second entity is trust in a user s networking site friends; and the third entity is trust in all users of the networking site. The background literature and hypotheses development are presented next, followed by the methodology and discussion. BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT Overview of Social Networking Sites Social networking sites (SNSs) have attracted the attention of individual users, the popular press, and academic researchers (Hargittai, 2007). Interest among researchers has been wide-ranging, with areas focusing on social capital (Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe, 2007), privacy concerns (Gross and Acquisti, 2005), differences between users and non-users (Hargittai, 2007), and impression management (DiMicco and Millen, 2007). SNSs have been defined as web-based services that allow individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system (Boyd and Ellison, 2007, p. 211). The visibility of a user s profile to other users differs by SNS and is usually configurable by the user. In addition, the list of other users is termed differently by SNS (e.g. friends, contacts, fans ), but refers to others in the system with whom the user has a relationship (Boyd and Ellison, 2007). We will refer to them as a user s friends. Among the two largest SNSs as measured by number of registered users are Facebook and MySpace. Facebook, in particular, boasts over 350 million active users, about half of whom log in on any given day (Facebook, 2010). On the other hand, MySpace has over 100 million monthly active users around the world and more than 68 million total unique users in the U.S. (MySpace, 2010). Other popular social networking sites in 2009 include Twitter, Flixster, Linkedin, and Tagged (Kazeniac, 2009). Theoretical Framework Our present study draws upon the theory of reasoned action (TRA) and theory of planned behavior (TPB) to explain the phenomenon of willingness to disclose personal information on SNSs. The TRA (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980) and its extension, the TPB (Ajzen, 1988), have been well adopted by information systems researchers since two decades ago to examine users intentions to adopt technologies (e.g. Davis, 1989). TPB postulates three determinants of behavioral intention: attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control; however, underlying these determinants are the beliefs relevant to the behavior (Ajzen, 1991). In this study, we are interested in investigating how individuals beliefs about Internet privacy and their trust in different entities influence their willingness to provide personal information on SNSs. In general, if an individual evaluates beliefs regarding a behavior in a positive light, then he or she would be more willing to perform the particular behavior (Ajzen, 1991). Willingness to Provide Personal Information The behavioral intention of interest is represented by the willingness to submit and share personal information that is true or authentic rather than fictitious. While people can easily (and do) provide false personal information on social networking sites, our interest is in investigating why people are willing to share authentic personal information. For the purposes of this study, personal information broadly encompasses any information that can help trace and confirm one s identity, such as name, birth date, address, phone number, photograph, hometown, etc. Prior studies about information sharing on SNSs suggest that trust in the members of a SNS and trust in the SNS itself are driving forces that increase a person s willingness to share information on a SNS (e.g. Dwyer, Hiltz, & Passerini, 2007; Fogel & Nehmad, 2009). For example, Dwyer, Hiltz, and Passerini (2007) found that Facebook users are more trusting of Facebook and its members than are MySpace users of MySpace and its members. Consequently, more Facebook users included personal information in their Facebook profiles than MySpace users in their MySpace profiles. We capture the willingness to disclose personal information at three scopes of disclosure (SNS, friends, and everyone). Capturing disclosure at different scopes is appropriate in the context of SNSs because networking sites provide users the options to set different information privacy levels. Therefore, decisions about information sharing involve a user s evaluation of multiple entities. For simplicity, we choose to examine three entities common on social networking sites. The first scope of disclosure involves submitting personal information to a SNS. Regardless of whether or not the user chooses to or is willing to share this information with other online users, once submitted, the information is in the possession of the SNS. The second and third scopes of disclosure encompass the willingness to share personal information with other users. Thus, the second scope of disclosure relates to willingness to share personal information with friends, people who have a direct link or connection to the individual. The third scope of disclosure entails willingness to share personal information with everyone so that all SNS users can view the information. Although at this time some SNSs do not allow the sharing of all personal Proceedings of the Sixteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Lima, Peru, August 12-15,

4 information with everyone (e.g. Facebook does not allow sharing all forms of contact information with everyone), we are still interested in capturing an individual s willingness to share this information. Figure 1 illustrates the current research model. Five primary hypotheses are proposed in this study and each is discussed next. Figure 1. Research model Internet Privacy Concern An individual s Internet privacy concern reflects his or her uneasiness about the potential opportunistic behavior related to his or her personal information submitted over the Internet (Dinev and Hart, 2006). Opportunistic behaviors may include a range of actions taken by others who use or misuse an individual s personal information, for example, identity theft, social engineering to extract one s financial information, and spam. With the proliferation of the Internet, we believe an important factor that contributes to shaping the individual s Internet privacy concern is his or her level of Internet literacy. Internet literacy is defined by Dinev and Hart (2005-6) as the ability to use an Internet-connected computer and Internet applications to accomplish practical tasks (p. 9). Typical users of the Internet may encounter phishing, spoofing, and other illegitimate incidents of deception in their s or on the web sites they visit. In addition, Internet users privacy can be easily imposed upon through malicious software, ActiveX controls and scripts, and cookies. These incidents require online users to be vigilant and skillful. Indeed, it is imperative that online users orient themselves efficiently on the web in order to protect themselves from such incidents. How an individual s Internet literacy influences his or her Internet privacy concern is not straightforward. On the one hand, lower degrees of Internet literacy may elevate the concern about privacy because although the individual may be vaguely aware of potential dangers, he or she may not know how to manage them. On the other hand, higher degrees of Internet literacy can likewise raise the concern about privacy because the individual is more aware of the immense dangers. However, the more literate individual may have the knowledge to attempt to minimize the dangers by installing and updating operating system and browser security patches and fixes, anti-spyware software and alerts, and other prevention utilities. Due to this perception of control (i.e. the ability to try to minimize potential dangers), individuals with higher Internet literacy are expected to be less concerned about their Internet privacy than individuals with lower Internet literacy. For example, in a study of the behavioral intention to conduct online e-commerce transactions, Dinev and Hart (2005-6) found that Internet literacy was negatively related to Internet privacy concern. H1: Internet literacy will be negatively related to Internet privacy concern. How then does a person s Internet privacy concern relate to his or her willingness to disclose personal information? The theory of planned behavior suggests that beliefs related to a behavior are prevailing determinants of a person s behavioral intentions (Ajzen, 1991). As such, in the context of our study, a person s beliefs about Internet privacy should also be a determinant of his or her intentions to share personal information on a SNS. In general, most consumers who participate in the e-commerce context are concerned about their online privacy. Findings from a recent study by the USC Center for the Digital Future indicate that 93% of online shoppers are concerned about the privacy of their personal information (USC, Proceedings of the Sixteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Lima, Peru, August 12-15,

5 2009). This concern is among the chief factors discouraging users from shopping online (Meinert, Peterson, Criswell, & Crossland, 2006). In line with this reasoning, Dinev and Hart (2006) found a negative relationship between Internet privacy concern and general willingness to provide personal information to transact on the Internet. In the context of SNSs, the relationship between Internet privacy concern and willingness to submit personal information should be similar to the e- commerce context, where higher privacy concerns should lead to reduced willingness to submit personal information to a SNS as well as to share this information with other SNS users (i.e. friends and everyone). This brings us to hypotheses 2a, 2b, and 2c, which are stated as follows: H2a: Internet privacy concern will be negatively related to willingness to submit authentic personal information to a SNS. H2b: Internet privacy concern will be negatively related to willingness to share authentic personal information with an individual s SNS friends. H2c: Internet privacy concern will be negatively related to willingness to share authentic personal information with everyone. In addition, people who have higher Internet privacy concerns should be less willing to share personal information with the public than with the SNS or their friends in particular. As such, the relationship represented in H2c should be stronger than the relationships represented in H2a and H2b. Trust Trust has been defined in numerous ways and most researchers in a particular discipline tend to conceptualize trust according to the perspective of that discipline. However, integrative models of trust have been forwarded by Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman (1995) and McKnight, Cummings, and Chervany (1998) in the management literature. Mayer et al. (1995) define trust as the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based on the expectation that the other will perform a particular action important to the trustor, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control that other party (p. 712). McKnight et al. (1998), citing Mayer et al., define trust to mean that one believes in, and is willing to depend on, another party (p. 474). Thus, the two components of trust are beliefs (i.e. trust beliefs) and willingness (i.e. trust intentions). Trust beliefs, or factors of perceived trustworthiness as Mayer et al. referred to them, are antecedents to trust intentions (McKnight et al., 1998) and are comprised of three factors, namely competence, benevolence, and integrity (Mayer et al., 1995; McKnight, Choudhury, & Kacmar, 2002). Specifically, competence refers to the ability of the trustee to perform the behaviors in the relevant domain expected by the truster. Benevolence refers to the extent to which the truster believes the trustee cares about and is motivated to act on behalf of the truster rather than for the self-gain of the trustee. And integrity refers to the extent to which the truster believes the trustee is honest and consistently keeps promises. In this study, we examine individuals trust regarding three entities to be trusted (trustees): trust beliefs about the SNS itself (which also represents trust beliefs in the company or entity behind the SNS), trust beliefs about an individual s own friends, and trust beliefs about everyone (i.e. all SNS users). Therefore, trust beliefs reflect the confidence that personal information submitted or shared will be handled competently, benevolently, and with integrity by the three trustee entities (Mayer et al., 1995; McKnight et al., 2002). We hypothesize that an individual s trust regarding different entities (SNS, friends, and everyone) are differentially related to their willingness to disclose personal information. Ajzen and Fishbein (1977), after a review of previous empirical studies, concluded that there will be stronger relationships between attitudes and behaviors when the attitudinal and behavioral entities measured have high correspondence. To illustrate, a person may have favorable attitudes toward football games, but have unfavorable attitudes toward attending football games. Thus, measuring general attitude toward football games should produce a weak relationship to actual attendance (the behavior); however, measuring the person s attitude toward attending football games should generate a strong relationship with actual attendance. It would follow then that beliefs about an entity should also relate more highly with intention to behave toward that entity (in our case, with willingness to share information) when the belief and intention entities measured have higher correspondence. For example, a person s trust beliefs about a particular SNS corresponds more with his or her willingness to submit personal information to that particular SNS than a person s trust beliefs about the Internet in general would with his or her willingness to submit personal information to a particular SNS. Furthermore, an individual s trust in his or her friends on a SNS should be related to his or her willingness to share personal information with those friends. Therefore, the higher correspondence between the entities to be trusted and the entities with whom one is willing to share personal information as represented in the current research model should better capture the relationship between beliefs and intentions. As a result, the following hypotheses are proposed. H3: Trust in a SNS will be positively related to willingness to submit authentic personal information to the SNS. Proceedings of the Sixteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Lima, Peru, August 12-15,

6 H4: Trust in friends will be positively related to willingness to share authentic personal information with an individual s friends. The final set of hypotheses characterizes the broadest scope of trust and information disclosure. A person who is trusting of everyone in general should be most willing to share information with all users of the SNS. This willingness to share encompasses the willingness to submit personal information to the SNS and to share the information with the person s friends. Thus, the final set of hypotheses is stated as follows: H5a,b,c: Trust in everyone will be positively related to willingness to submit authentic personal information to a SNS and to share this information with everyone, including friends. As suggested by the TPB, attitudes and behaviors will have stronger relationships when the attitudinal and behavioral entities measured have higher correspondence. Therefore, the relationship between trust in everyone and willingness to share personal information with everyone (H5c) should be stronger than the relationships described in H5a and H5b. METHOD We chose to test the research model by examining Facebook. Since Facebook is the largest social networking site, we reasoned that Facebook users may better represent the average SNS user and the potential participant pool would be greatest for this site than any other SNS. Our study was conducted via an online questionnaire. s were sent to 63 people affiliated with a southwestern university in the U.S. These people were selected based on their relatively wide range in ages and life stages. If they used Facebook, they were asked to take the survey and if willing, to help distribute the survey link to all their Facebook friends. The purpose of this technique was to sample a variety of participants in terms of age and background. To encourage participation, participants were offered the option to enter a raffle to win one of two $50 gift certificates to a store of their choice. The data for the current study was collected over a two-week period, resulting in 87 total responses. Of these, 80 responses were usable for our analysis. Measures Measures for Internet literacy and Internet privacy concern were adapted from prior literature, although one item for Internet literacy was created for this study (see Appendix). These measures used a 5-point Likert-type response format ranging from not at all to to a very large extent. Measures for trust beliefs were also adapted from prior literature and modified to fit the SNS context, although one item was developed for this study. These measures used a 7-point Likert-type response format ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Finally, willingness to disclose personal information simply asked respondents to assess the extent to which they were willing to share each of 13 personal information items with each of the three entities (SNS, friends, everyone). The 13 personal information items included name, date of birth, hometown, address, address, home phone, cell phone, photograph, high school(s) attended, college(s) attended, name of employer, interests, and personality. The survey items for Internet literacy, Internet privacy concern, and trust beliefs can be found in the Appendix. Participants Of the 80 valid responses, 53 (66%) respondents were 30 years-old and under. The other respondents ranged from 31 to more than 61 years old. Fifty-four (67.5%) participants were female. On average, participants indicated that they spend about 1.2 hours (s.d.=1.12 hours) per day on Facebook and had been using Facebook for an average of 2.8 years (s.d.=1.87 years). Results Table 1 shows the means and standard deviations of the dependent variables, i.e. the extent to which respondents were willing to disclose their personal information to Facebook, everyone, and friends. Analysis of variance between any two of the 3 groups revealed a significant difference at the p <.05 level for each of the 13 variables (F-ratios range from to ), suggesting that people s willingness to disclose the same piece of information differed significantly for each entity. Proceedings of the Sixteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Lima, Peru, August 12-15,

7 Facebook SNS Everyone Friends Variable Mean S.D. Mean S.D. Mean S.D. My real name My real date of birth My real hometown My real address My real address My real home phone number My real cell phone number A real photograph of myself The real high school(s) I've attended The real college(s) I've attended The name of my real employer Information about my true interests Information about my true personality Note: Likert-type response scale ranges from not at all (1) to to a very large extent (5). ANOVA between any two groups showed a significant difference at the p <.05 level for each variable. Table 1. Summary of willingness to disclose personal information to SNS, everyone, and friends Due to the small sample size, SmartPLS Version 2.0 (Ringle, Wende, & Will, 2005) was used to analyze the research model. Relatively small sample sizes, sometimes as few as the number of variables, can be sufficient for descriptive PLS analyses (Fornell & Bookstein, 1982). Our analysis followed the approach outlined by Chin (1998) for reflective measures. Because of the sample size and complexity of the model, the 13 measures for willingness to share information were summed for each entity to create one-item indicators for analysis in the SmartPLS model. Results of the measurement model indicate that satisfactory reliability and validity were achieved (composite reliability, CR >.70; average variance extracted, AVE >.50). See Table 2. Results also suggest satisfactory discriminant validity: the square root of the AVE for each factor is higher than the correlations with other factors (Table 2), and the cross-loadings show each item loading higher on its own factor than on other factors (Table 3). Two items measuring Internet literacy were dropped due to loadings of less than.70. Internet privacy concern Willingness to share with SNS Willingness to share with everyone Table 2. Descriptive statistics, psychometric measurement validation, and correlations Willingness to share with friends Internet Trust Trust Trust Mean S.D. AVE CR literacy (SNS) (everyone) (friends) Internet literacy Internet privacy concern Trust (SNS) Trust (everyone) Trust (friends) Willingness to share with SNS N/A Willingness to share with everyone N/A Willingness to share with friends N/A Note: The diagonals are the square roots of the average variance extracted (AVE) for each factor. Proceedings of the Sixteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Lima, Peru, August 12-15,

8 Internet literacy Internet privacy concern Trust (SNS) Trust (everyone) Trust (friends) IntLiteracy_ IntLiteracy_ IntLiteracy_ PrivConcern_ PrivConcern_ PrivConcern_ PrivConcern_ TrustEvery_ TrustEvery_ TrustEvery_ TrustEvery_ TrustFriend_ TrustFriend_ TrustFriend_ TrustFriend_ TrustFriend_ TrustFriend_ TrustSNS_ TrustSNS_ TrustSNS_ TrustSNS_ TrustSNS_ TrustSNS_ Table 3. Construct loadings and cross loadings The standard bootstrap resampling procedure was used to test the significance of the structural research model in SmartPLS. Figure 2 illustrates the model results from the analysis, with explanatory powers (R 2 ) and standardized path coefficients (ß) ** Figure 2. Model results The results show that 5 of the 9 hypotheses were significant at the 0.05 level or better. Interestingly, H1, which stated that Internet literacy will be negatively related to Internet privacy concern, turned out to be significant in the opposite direction than hypothesized. Internet literacy explained only 7.4% of the variance in Internet privacy concern. The different Proceedings of the Sixteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Lima, Peru, August 12-15,

9 combinations of Internet privacy concern and trust beliefs explained 17.7%, 21.4%, and 10.0% of the variance in willingness to disclose information to SNS, friends, and everyone, respectively. Table 4 summarizes the results of our hypotheses. Hypothesis H1: Internet literacy will be negatively related to Internet privacy concern. H2a: Internet privacy concern will be negatively related to willingness to submit authentic personal information to a SNS. H2b: Internet privacy concern will be negatively related to willingness to share authentic personal information with an individual's SNS friends. H2c: Internet privacy concern will be negatively related to willingness to share authentic personal information with everyone. H3: Trust in a SNS will be positively related to willingness to submit authentic personal information to the SNS. H4: Trust in friends will be positively related to willingness to share authentic personal information with an individual's friends. H5a: Trust in everyone will be positively related to willingness to submit authentic personal information to a SNS. H5b: Trust in everyone will be positively related to willingness to share authentic personal information with friends. H5c: Trust in everyone will be positively related to willingness to share authentic personal information with everyone. Result Significant in opposite direction Supported Not supported Supported Supported Supported Not supported Not supported Not supported Table 4. Summary of results DISCUSSION We had set out to investigate why people s privacy concerns and their willingness to disclose their personal information appear to be widely incongruent. Specifically, we examined how people s Internet privacy concern and trust beliefs regarding Facebook, friends, and all SNS users impacted their willingness to share personal information with each of the same three entities. The results show that although Internet privacy concerns and trust beliefs do significantly impact people s willingness to share information, they explain only between 10.0% and 21.4% of the variance in willingness to share information. We also observe that the explained variance for willingness to share with friends is greatest (21.4%) while the explained variance for willingness to share with everyone is lowest (10.0%). Interestingly, the relationship between Internet privacy concern and willingness to share with friends is non-significant even though this relationship is significant when we conduct a post-hoc analysis without the three trust constructs. This suggests that people s trust in their friends tends to override their Internet privacy concern and they become more willing to share information with friends. However, this is not the case when it comes to willingness to share with the SNS because the relationship between Internet privacy concern and willingness to share with SNS is still significant. Additionally, none of the relationships between trust in everyone and willingness to share information were significant. This seems to suggest that the relationship between trust in everyone and willingness to share information is not straightforward and involves factors beyond the scope of this paper. It is also possible that the respondents evaluation of trust in all Facebook users is a difficult task not only due to the enormous number of users on Facebook, but also because respondents are unlikely to know the nature of all users in general. In such cases, respondents may defer to their general dispositions to trust others. As previously mentioned, the relationship between Internet literacy and Internet privacy concern was found to be significant in the opposite direction than hypothesized. While a previous study about online shopping found this relationship to be negative (Dinev & Hart, ), the current study found it to be positive. One potential explanation for this contrasting finding is the difference in contexts of the two studies. In the online shopping context, people with greater Internet literacy are likely to be more confident in protecting themselves in online transactions (e.g. choosing to transact with reputable vendors and secured sites), which reduces their Internet privacy concern. However, in the SNS context, more Internet literate users may feel that information volunteered on a SNS is not very secure or private and can potentially be shared with millions of users. Facebook should realize that its users have varying degrees of trust (e.g. a SNS user s trust in his or her own friends is higher than his or her trust in all users of the Facebook site). Therefore, Facebook might offer more options to its users regarding how much personal information they would like to reveal and with whom they would like to share this information. Proceedings of the Sixteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Lima, Peru, August 12-15,

10 Furthermore, since it was found that the relationship between Internet literacy and Internet privacy concern varies as a function of the context, future research should investigate a variety of contexts simultaneously to uncover factors influencing the relationship between Internet literacy and Internet privacy concern. Finally, although not stated as formal hypotheses, we earlier made two speculations about the strength of relationships. First, we proposed that people who have higher Internet privacy concerns should be less willing to share personal information with everyone than with the SNS or their friends in particular. The model results partly show this pattern. The coefficient for the relationship between privacy concern and willingness to share with everyone (H2c; ß=-0.246) is stronger than the coefficient for the relationship between privacy concern and willingness to share with friends (H2b; ß=-0.175), although this is not the case for the relationship between privacy concern and willingness to share with SNS (H2a; ß=-0.253). Second, we proposed that the relationship between trust in everyone and willingness to share personal information with everyone (H5c) will be stronger than the relationships described in H5a and H5b. The results seem to show this pattern (ß for H5c=0.140, ß for H5a=0.066, ß for H5b=0.058), although none of the three relationships were significant. Admittedly, more research is needed to uncover the complexities of the relationships between Internet privacy concern and scopes of disclosure and between trust and scopes of disclosure. Some of the findings regarding trust and information disclosure in this study are consistent with prior findings. For example, in line with Dwyer et al. (2007) and Fogel and Nehmad (2009), trust in a SNS (in our case, Facebook) tends to be positively related to willingness to provide information to the SNS. However, unlike prior findings, our study finds no significant relationship between trust in all members of a SNS and willingness to share information with these members. This paper has specifically focused on trust entities and privacy concern as factors that influence people s willingness to provide personal information. However, many other variables can potentially be influential in the SNS context. The TPB suggests that social influences and attitudes toward a behavior can also influence people s behavioral intentions. For example, if all of one s Facebook friends share their personal information, one might be inclined to do the same. Furthermore, perhaps the benefits of providing personal information, such as having the opportunity to be found by former friends and colleagues or developing new relationships, might outweigh the costs. For instance, it has been shown that Facebook users who populate their profile fields tend to have more friend connections (Lampe, Ellison, & Steinfield, 2007). Future research might consider these and other factors. Limitations and Conclusion Several limitations of the study should be noted. One limitation is the relatively small sample size compared to SNS studies of a larger scale. Another limitation is the self-selection of participants in responding to the questionnaire. This selfselection could have somewhat accounted for the predominantly female sample; however, this may not necessarily be true since most Facebook users in the U.S. are indeed female. According to a report at insidefacebook.com, the number of female Facebook users exceeds males in all 6 age categories reported (Smith, 2009). A third limitation is that the study did not capture users actual information disclosure, but rather their willingness to disclose information. Overall, the results of this study demonstrate that in the SNS context, people have trust beliefs for multiple entities and these beliefs differentially impact people s willingness to share with these entities. Furthermore, the balance between privacy concerns and trust may have varied impacts on information sharing for each entity. More research is needed to better understand the counterbalance of trust on privacy concerns as they relate to information sharing on SNSs. In addition, the entities involved in SNSs comprise beyond the three examined in this study. Other entities include friends of friends and smaller private groups that users can create, such as Friend Lists in Facebook. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors gratefully acknowledge the Baylor University MIS Department for funding the raffle gift cards. REFERENCES 1. Ajzen, I. (1991) The theory of planned behavior, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50, Ajzen, I., and Fishbein, M. (1977) Attitude-behavior relations: A theoretical analysis and review of empirical research, Psychological Bulletin, 84(5), Ajzen, I., and Fishbein, M. (1980) Understanding attitudes and predicting social behavior, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. 4. Bhattacherjee, A. (2002) Individual trust in online firms: Scale development and initial test, Journal of Management Information Systems, 19(1), Boyd, D. M., and Ellison, N. B. (2007) Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship, Journal of Computer- Mediated Communication, 13, Proceedings of the Sixteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Lima, Peru, August 12-15,

11 6. Chin, W.W. (1998) The partial least squares approach for structural equation modeling, in G.A. Marcoulides (Ed.) Modern Methods for Business Research, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ, Davis, F. D. (1989) Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology, MIS Quarterly, 13(3), DiMicco, J. M., and Millen, D. R. (2007) Identity management: Multiple presentations of self in Facebook, Proceedings of International ACM Conference on Supporting Group Work, Sanibel Island, FL. 9. Dinev, T., and Hart, P. (2005-6) Internet privacy concerns and social awareness as determinants of intention to transact, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 10(2), Dinev, T., and Hart, H. (2006) An extended privacy calculus model for e-commerce transactions, Information Systems Research, 17(1), Dwyer, C., Hiltz, S. R., and Passerini, K. (2007) Trust and privacy concern within social networking sites: A comparison of Facebook and MySpace, Proceedings of the Thirteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Keystone, CO. 12. Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., and Lampe, C. (2007) The benefits of Facebook friends: Social capital and college students use of online social network sites, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12, Facebook. (2010) Press room, statistics. Palo Alto, CA. Retrieved February, 2010 from Fogel, J., and Nehmad, E. (2009) Internet social network communities: Risk taking, trust, and privacy concerns, Computers in Human Behavior, 25, Fornell, C., and Bookstein, F. L. (1982) Two structural equation models: LISREL and PLS applied to consumer exitvoice theory, Journal of Marketing Research, 19(4), Gross, R., and Acquisti, A. (2005) Information revelation and privacy in online social networks, Proceedings of ACM Workshop on Privacy in the Electronic Society, Alexandria, VA. 17. Hargittai, E. (2007) Whose space? Differences among users and non-users of social network sites, Journal of Computer- Mediated Communication, 13, Kazeniac, A. (2009) Social networks: Facebook takes over top spot, Twitter climbs, February 9, Retrieved November, 2009 from Lampe, C., Ellison, N., and Steinfield, C. (2007) A familiar Face(book): Profile elements as signals in an online social network, Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, San Jose, CA. 20. Malhotra, N. K., Kim, S. S., and Agarwal, J. (2004) Internet users information privacy concerns (IUIPC): The construct, the scale, and a causal model, Information Systems Research, 15(4), Mayer, R. C., Davis, J. H., and Schoorman, F. D. (1995) An integrative model of organizational trust, Academy of Management Review, 20(3), McKnight, D. H., Choudhury, V., and Kacmar, C. (2002) Developing and validating trust measures for e-commerce: An integrative typology, Information Systems Research, 13(3), McKnight, D. H., Cummings, L. L., and Chervany, N. L. (1998) Initial trust formation in new organizational relationships, Academy of Management Review, 23(3), Meinert, D. B., Peterson, D. K., Criswell, J. R., and Crossland, M. D. (2006) Privacy policy statements and consumer willingness to provide personal information, Journal of Electronic Commerce in Organizations, 4(1), MySpace. (2010) Pressroom, fact sheet. Los Angeles, CA. Retrieved February, 2010 from Ringle, C. M., Wende, S., and Will, A. (2005) SmartPLS 2.0 (beta), University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany. 27. Smith, J. (2009) Latest data on Facebook s US growth by age and gender October 1, Retrieved February, 2010 from USC Center for the Digital Future. (2009) Digital Future Project. Retrieved December, 2009 from Proceedings of the Sixteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Lima, Peru, August 12-15,

12 Appendix Construct Items Source Internet literacy Identify and delete a program which you consider intrusive (spyware) and which was installed through the Internet without your knowledge and permission. Manage virus attacks by using antivirus software. Communicate through instant messaging or discussion boards. [dropped] Download files/audio/video/executables from the Internet. [dropped] Clear Internet browser cache, cookies, browsing and search history, stored passwords, etc. Dinev & Hart (2005-6) New item Internet privacy concerns Trust belief (SNS) Trust belief (friends) Trust belief (everyone) I am concerned that the information I submit on the Internet could be misused. Dinev & Hart (2006) I am concerned that a person can find private information about me on the Internet. I am concerned about submitting information on the Internet because of what others might do with it. I am concerned about submitting information on the Internet because it could be used in a way I did not foresee. I believe that the Facebook company would act in my best interest when dealing with my McKnight et al. (2002) personal information. The Facebook company is interested in protecting my personal information according to the McKnight et al. (2002) preferences I specify. The Facebook company would tell the truth and fulfill its promises related to the personal Malhotra, Kim, & information provided by me. Agarwal (2004) The Facebook company is sincere and genuine in managing my personal information. McKnight et al. (2002) The Facebook company handles personal information submitted by users in a competent Dinev & Hart (2006) fashion. The Facebook company performs its role of managing my personal information according to McKnight et al. (2002) my privacy settings very well. I believe that if I allowed my Facebook friends to view my personal information, they would act McKnight et al. (2002) in my best interest when dealing with this information. My Facebook friends would not use my personal information opportunistically. New item I would characterize my Facebook friends as honest in handling my personal information. McKnight et al. (2002) My Facebook friends are sincere and genuine in dealing with my personal information. McKnight et al. (2002) My Facebook friends have the skills and expertise to handle my personal information carefully. Bhattacherjee, A. (2002) My Facebook friends handle the personal information I share with them in a competent Dinev & Hart (2006) fashion. I believe that if I allowed everyone on Facebook to view my personal information, they would McKnight et al. (2002) act in my best interest when dealing with this information. People on Facebook would not use my personal information opportunistically. New item I would characterize people on Facebook as honest in handling others users' personal McKnight et al. (2002) information. McKnight et al. (2002) People on Facebook are sincere and genuine in dealing with other users' personal information. Proceedings of the Sixteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Lima, Peru, August 12-15,