“I Never Read It, but I Always Accept It”: Unravelling Social, Individual, and Policy Design-induced Influences on Privacy Policy Acceptance

While logging on online platforms, users need to review a privacy policy and decide if they give consent. However, users often accept privacy policies without actually reading them. Privacy policy acceptance is not a mere transactional interaction between a user and a policy document, but a phenomenon also shaped by social influences. This study explores how social (i.e., social norms), individual (i.e., privacy concerns), and policy design-induced influences (i.e., privacy fatigue) are interwoven to affect privacy policy acceptance. We conducted cross-sectional surveys with 522 participants. The regression analysis results showed that social norms and privacy fatigue were positively related to privacy policy acceptance. Privacy concerns attenuated the effect of social norms. As such, individuals automatically accept privacy policies because of social influences and mental fatigue; however, the more privacy concerns individuals harbor, the less likely they rely on social influences to make decisions regarding their acceptance behavior.