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

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.