''Online Privacy Fears Stoked By Google, Twitter, Facebook Data Collection Arms Race'', ''Your E-Book Is Reading You'', '' 'Instant personalization' brings more privacy issues to Facebook''. These are only a few recent examples of media headlines that deal with the issue of online privacy and personalization.Scholars and managers have repeatedly stated the benefits of personalization which is targeting products and services to individual customers, and constitutes a key element of an interactive marketing strategy. In order to accurately estimate the needs and wants of customers, it is necessary to gather a significant amount of information. Privacy concerns may arise when personal information about customers is gathered. If this arises, personalization can backfire by making clients reluctant to use the service or - even worse - developing a negative attitude towards the company.A recent survey by Opera Software (2011) found that Americans fear online privacy violations more than job losses or declaring personal bankruptcy. This had induced politicians to introduce regulations and laws that address online privacy that safeguards consumers against online monitoring, and intrusion into confidential user information. However, privacy online remains a complicated issue for both, managers and politicians for new personalization technology emerges at a much faster pace than political regulations and guidelines.This is the first study that establishes a link between different types of data collection, data usage, and concerns for information privacy. It also analyses the impact of privacy concerns on value, risk and usability perception of personalization, and the users willingness to transact with the website. Further, it develops a conceptual framework, and tests it by collecting responses to a questionnaire from an online-crowdsourcing sample of Amazon Mechanical Turk.

Jörg Ziesak, M.Sc. was born in Bielefeld in 1986. He graduated in'International Business' with a specialization in'Strategic Marketing' at the Universiteit Maastricht in 2012. Thus, he attained the academic title'Master of Science' with the distinction'cum laude'. Even during his studies, the author gained hands-on experience in the online industry. The ever changing world of online business, and the boundless opportunities to adapt products or services online, motivated him to work on the topic of this book.

Text sample:Chapter 3.7, Risk Beliefs of Online Personalization:Risk evaluation and the fear of losing control over the collection, protection, and use of private information is always present online (Van Slyke, Shim, Johnson,& Jiang, 2006). Generally, risk can be defined as a subjective assessment of the possibility of loss (Dinev& Hart, 2006). In e-commerce, prior literature has identified three types of risks: economic risk, personal risk, and privacy risk (Van Slyke, Shim, Johnson,& Jiang, 2006). While economic risks concentrate on the potential monetary loss and personal risks focus on gaining insecure products or services or unsatisfying work results, privacy risks deal with the possible loss of private information or identity theft (Liao, Liu,& Chen, 2011). Research across different merchants, product types and cultures has been conducted on risks influence on willingness to engage in online transactions (Jarvenpaa, Tractinsky,& Vitale, 2000; Kimery& M. McCord, 2002; McKnight, Choudhury,& Kacmar, 2002). However, most of the studies focused on general risk or economic loss instead of the numerous sources of privacy risks, e.g. unwanted personalized advertisements, unauthorized access, or identity theft. Only a small number of studies have dealt with the influence of loss of privacy on the willingness to transact so far: Malhotra et al. (2004) found that risk beliefs have a negative impact on behavioral intentions; Li et al. (2010) proofed the same effect for privacy risk beliefs on behavioral intentions; Cocosila et al. (2009) analyzed that perceived privacy risk, mediated by perceived psychological risk, has a negative impact on behavioral intention to use; Van Slyke et al. (2006) showed a negative impact of risk perception on willingness to transact; Dinev and Hart (2006) found a negative influence of perceived Internet privacy risk on willingness to provide personal information to transact on the Internet. However, all of these studies did not analyze the risks concerned with online personalization. These can be classified into five categories: usability-, relationship-, monetary-, nonmonetary- and unauthorized use-related risks.First, users are more or less compelled to disclose personal information, because some websites only work with restrictions or not at all if users do not register, which signifies problems with usability (Sipior, Ward,& Mendoza, 2011). Second, when users are aware of the fact that they are being monitored, they adapt their browsing behavior and avoid the publishing of sensitive information, which negatively influences the relationship between the two parties (Hui, Teo,& Lee, 2007; Laudon& Traver, 2008). Moreover, customers could even get aggressive and be incited to retaliation behavior, if they feel threatened or harmed (McCreary, 2008; Lee& Lee, 2009). Third, consumers can be confronted with monetary drawbacks, because firms might demand extra fees for personalizing the content (Vesanen, 2007). Fourth, users are concerned about the loss or misuse of nonmonetary goods and valuables, in connection to personalization, the loss of privacy or sensible data (Malhotra, Kim,& Agarwal, 2004). Concerns about loss of privacy are the most salient reason of denial to establish a relationship with merchants (Dinev& Hart, 2006; Liao, Liu,& Chen, 2011; Phelps, D'Souza,& Nowak, 2001). Fifth, the risk of unauthorized use like identity thefts via spyware or hacker attacks is constantly present (Chaffey, 2007; Heffes, 2005; McCreary, 2008; Pitta, Franzak,& Laric, 2003). All these risks can stimulate fear of loss of privacy in the users mind (Lee& Lee, 2009). Users should therefore be reluctant to disclose private information and their willingness to transact with a personalized website should decrease. More formally stated:H6:Risk Beliefs of Online Personalization have a negative influence on users Willingness to Transact.