Consumer Privacy and Trust Online: An Experimental Analysis of Anti-Phishing Promotional Effects

ABSTRACT This article reports results of a pre-test/post-test experimental analysis of anti-phishing website promotional effects on participant trust. Participants (n = 101) were randomly assigned to view varying levels (high, medium, low) of online promotional strategies banks use to combat phishing, which refers to the fraudulent and increasingly authentic looking e-mail attempts aimed to lure unsuspecting recipients into sharing sensitive financial and personal information. Results for the dependent variable measures of trust, a central theoretical construct for relational theories of public relations and relationship marketing, reveal that higher amounts of anti-phishing information promote higher levels of trust. Despite initial concern that a threshold effect may result from promotion of anti-phishing information, results show consumers grow more trusting when organizations show more response to phishing threats.

[1]  Sonja Grabner-Kraeuter.  The Role of Consumers' Trust in Online-Shopping , 2002 .

[2]  Shelly Rodgers,et al.  Gender and e-commerce: an exploratory study , 2003, Journal of Advertising Research.

[3]  S. Hunt,et al.  The Commitment-Trust Theory of Relationship Marketing , 1994 .

[4]  Traci B Warrington,et al.  BUILDING TRUST TO DEVELOP COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN E‐BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS , 2000 .

[5]  Matthew K. O. Lee,et al.  Trust in Internet Shopping: Instrument Development and Validation through Classical and Modern Approaches , 2001, J. Glob. Inf. Manag..

[6]  K. Giffin.  The contribution of studies of source credibility to a theory of interpersonal trust in the communication process. , 1967, Psychological bulletin.

[7]  Y. Huang.  OPRA: A Cross-Cultural, Multiple-Item Scale for Measuring Organization-Public Relationships , 2001 .

[8]  Xueming Luo.  Trust production and privacy concerns on the Internet , 2002 .

[9]  D. Gefen,et al.  Consumer trust in B2C e-Commerce and the importance of social presence: experiments in e-Products and e-Services , 2004 .

[10]  D. Koehn.  The Nature of and Conditions for Online Trust , 2003 .

[11]  Matthew W. Seeger,et al.  Communication, Organization, and Crisis , 1998 .

[12]  J. Rotter.  Generalized expectancies for interpersonal trust. , 1971 .

[13]  Robert Louis B. Stevenson,et al.  Plugging the “Phishing” Hole: Legislation Versus Technology , 2005 .

[14]  John Linn,et al.  Technology and web user data privacy - a survey of risks and countermeasures , 2005, IEEE Security & Privacy.

[15]  John A. Ledingham,et al.  Organization‐public relationships and consumer satisfaction: The role of relationships in the satisfaction mix , 1998 .