Potential trust barriers in US state e-government privacy policies

Online privacy and consumer trust is of concern for all types of websites when personal information is shared. Privacy policies provide an opportunity to promote consumer trust for popular uses of the web especially given the proliferation of online privacy breaches. One such use for which consumer trust and privacy is of growing concern is electronic government. This study assesses the contents and reading complexity of privacy policies posted by the US state government websites. The findings show that the lack of standardisation and complexity may pose as impediments to consumer trust in the use of these sites.