Social attitudes of young people in Japan towards online privacy

This study attempts to explore the attitudes of young Japanese people towards online privacy as customers of online shopping sites in the Japanese socio-cultural context through questionnaire surveys and follow-up interviews. Although it is reputed that Japanese people have recently become sensitive to the importance of protecting personal information and privacy, the survey outcomes, which contained seemingly contradictory responses, showed that this was not necessarily the case. Analysis of the survey results and subsequent discussions led to useful suggestions for businesses developing appropriate personal information and privacy protection policies and schemes. Those discussions also provided helpful suggestions to governments for making and implementing related policies including the enforcement of legal regulations for successful B to C e-commerce and personal information and privacy protection and the development of proper educational programmes concerning personal information and privacy protection in the Japanese socio-cultural environment.