Your Privacy Is Sealed: Effects of Web Privacy Seals on Trust and Personal Disclosures

TLDR

Online privacy is a growing national concern, and third‑party privacy seals such as TRUSTe and BBBOnline are proposed to assure consumers. The study evaluates consumer responses to privacy seals in a naturalistic online experiment. Participants were exposed to privacy seals in a realistic web‑site setting to measure trust and disclosure expectations. Results indicate that privacy seals increase trust and expectations of privacy information disclosure, with privacy self‑efficacy moderating the effect, while privacy‑threat concerns had no influence.

Abstract

Online privacy is an issue of increasing national importance, and voluntary privacy seals provided by third‐party organizations such as TRUSTe and BBBOnline have been proposed as a means of assuring consumer privacy. Few studies have examined privacy seal effects. This study presents results of an online experiment that evaluated consumer response to privacy seals in a naturalistic exposure setting. Findings suggest that privacy seals enhance trust in the Web site and expectations that the site would inform the user of its information practices. While concern for privacy‐threatening information practices had no influence, privacy self‐efficacy, confidence in ability to protect one's privacy, moderated seal effects. Implications for the continued role of privacy seals are discussed.