Unravelling the Effects of Privacy Policies on Information Disclosure: Insights from E-Commerce Consumer Behavior

The aim of this study was to explore the influence of a personal information agreement on customers’ information disclosure behavior. By integrating the existing privacy calculus theory, we sought to understand customer behavior in the context of encountering a personal information agreement and to provide insights into the efficacy of a company’s privacy policy. Our findings reveal that upon encountering a personal information agreement, customers perceive both a privacy retention period policy and privacy information sharing policy. We discovered that both policies significantly influence the perception of privacy benefits, but only the privacy information sharing policy impacts the perception of privacy risk. Furthermore, while privacy benefits were found to dictate information disclosure behavior in the context of a personal information agreement, perceptions of privacy risk did not significantly affect this behavior.