Privacy-Personalization Paradox in Adoption of Mobile Health Service: The Mediating Role of Trust

With the emergence of electronic medical information, mobile health service has been becoming increasingly popular in healthcare. Customers usually have to disclose some of their personal information and preferences for personalized usage of mobile health service. Accordingly, as the negative consequences of the personalized services, consumers’ privacy concern has become an important predictor of individuals’ behavior intention. To address this so called “privacy – personalization” paradox, this study proposes that trust is a key mediator between privacy, personalization and behavioral intention. A survey with 492 subjects in China was conducted to test the proposed research model and hypotheses. The data analysis results show that: (1) Trust is positively associated with behavioral intention; (2) perceived personalization and privacy concern are respectively positively and negatively associated with trust; and (3) trust mediates the relationships between perceived personalization, privacy concern and behavioral intention. Theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.