Do consumers understand the role of privacy seals in e-commerce?

Abstract

E-Commerce sales in the U.S. totaled $56.0 billion in 2003, an increase of 26.4% over the 2002 total of $44.3 billion [7]. This increase was achieved at a time when the U.S. economy teetered in and out of recession. While e-commerce sales are expected to grow rapidly, Jupiter Research speculates that privacy concerns will cause billions in lost sales for Internet-related businesses [2]. Although all commercial and business transactions require an element of trust, the amount of data required to complete an online B2C transaction and the potential for fraud has continually raised privacy concerns [1, 9].