Effects of perceived privacy protection: does reading privacy notices matter?

Many consumers do not read privacy notices despite the fact that websites post privacy notices to address consumers’ long-standing concerns about privacy protection on the internet. To understand why consumers do not read privacy notices and the impact of reading (or not reading) privacy notices on the found effect of privacy notices, data were collected from 137 readers of privacy notices and 97 non-readers of privacy notices. This research’s test of the moderating effects of reading (or not reading) privacy notices found that perceived privacy protection positively affected trust and negatively affected perceived information risk and that the negative effect of perceived privacy protection on perceived information risk became stronger for privacy notice readers. This research also developed a typology of reasons why consumers read and do not read privacy notices.