Privacy Perceptions and Behaviors Towards Targeted Advertising on Social Media: A Cross-Country Study on the Effect of Culture and Religion

Social media platforms are an effective channel for businesses to reach potential audiences through targeted advertising. As the user base of these platforms expands and diversifies, research on targeted advertising and social media needs to go beyond well-studied Western contexts. In an online survey (n=412), we compared users' privacy-related perceptions and behaviors regarding targeted ads on social media in the United States (as a baseline representing Western contexts) and three South Asian countries: Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. We found that participants in the US perceived significantly fewer benefits and more concerns related to security and privacy about targeted ads than those in the three South Asian countries. We also identified that individual's cultural values and religious affiliations influenced the observed cross-country variances. For instance, US participants identified less with vertical collectivism and vertical individualism than South Asian participants; these two cultural dimensions were, in turn, positively associated with perceived benefits. Our findings highlight the limitation of using one's country as a proxy for culture, as our findings show users' privacy perceptions regarding targeted advertising on social media are more fundamentally associated with their cultural values and religion. We discuss the corresponding design, education, and regulatory implications for targeted advertising on social media.