Perceptions of the Safety of the Internet: Fear and the Future of the Web

This paper examines user perception of the risk associated with giving information to online companies, as well as user concerns with personal privacy issues and beliefs that using the Internet can result in personal privacy problems. A proposed research model was created by integrating constructs from previous research, and a survey was conducted to examine one construct from this model, user perception of the Internet or the degree to which individuals discriminate between giving information to online versus traditional companies. Overwhelmingly, respondents report feeling more at risk and less safe when giving information to firms that conduct business only online than when giving information to firms that conduct business only in the traditional face-to-face manner in an office or store. Additionally, nearly two-thirds of those surveyed (sixty-five percent) believe that using the Internet can result in personal privacy problems. Whereas research in this area often points to vendor and/or Web site attributes as dominant factors affecting willingness to give information online, we suggest that positive merchant/Web attributes are necessary but insufficient to provide the assurance of transaction safety that Web users require.