ONLINE INFORMATION PRIVACY: MEASURING THE COST-BENEFIT TRADE-OFF

Concern over information privacy is widespread and rising. However, prior research is silent about the value of information privacy and the benefit of privacy protection. We conducted a conjoint analysis to explore individuals trade-offs between the benefits and costs of providing personal information to Websites. We find that economic incentives (monetary reward and future convenience) do affect individuals preferences over Websites with differing privacy policies. For instance, the disallowance of secondary use of personal information is worth between $39.83 and $49.78. Surprisingly, we find that cost-benefit trade-offs did not vary with personal characteristics including gender, contextual knowledge, individualism, and trust propensity.