Authors: Malin Karlsson, Sandra Karlsson, Amanda Malmberg Tutor: Dr. Setayesh Sattari Examiner: Prof. Anders Pehrsson Background: Consumers increasingly purchase products online due to the widespread use of the Internet. The decision for consumers to purchase online is predicted by their purchase intentions, which in turn is affected by their information privacy concerns. There is a lack of research on IPC and purchase intentions in the context of online personalized advertising. Purpose: To extend the understanding of purchase intentions considering information privacy concerns and involvement in the context of online personalized advertising. Methodology: A survey in form of a questionnaire was conducted in order to gather the information necessary to be able to analyse the relationship between IPC and purchase intentions in the context of online personalized advertising. The sample consists of 18-70 year olds from cities in southern Sweden. Conclusion: Conclusions drawn in this thesis is that when applied in the context of online personalized advertising, there is no significant relationship between IPC and purchase intentions. However, involvement is suggested as having a positive relationship to purchase intentions, as well as a positive moderating effect on the relationship between IPC and purchase intention in the context of online personalized advertising. Keywords: Purchase intentions, Information privacy concerns (IPC), Online personalized advertising, Involvement.

The following report is an examination of consumer tracking and profiling in the United States. The paper presents perspectives on the current discussion surrounding regulation of consumer tracking. It begins with an explanation of the evolution of tracking technologies and tracking prevention tools. This is followed by a discussion of the outcomes of self-regulatory initiatives, as well as existing regulatory efforts from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and standardization initiatives from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). This background information is used to examine “specialty consumer reporting agency” Web sites, information brokers that exist solely to create profiles about individuals and sell these profiles online. This research presents a content analysis of privacy policies for 29 of these Web sites. Specifically, the content analysis focuses on the legal language they use in their presentation of Federal Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) disclaimers, the listed sources of their information, and their instructions for users to correct or remove their information. The conclusion from the findings is that many of these Web sites are engaging in deceptive practices as defined by the FTC. As a solution, the FTC could enforce FCRA requirements on these Web sites by requiring that consumers be able to access this information, dispute inaccurate information, understand how their information is gathered and used, and opt out of having a profile completely. The FTC also can create a centralized Web site where specialty consumer reporting agencies identify themselves to consumers, describe how they collect and use consumer data, and detail the access rights and other choices they provide with respect to the consumer data they maintain. Finally, the paper concludes with a summary of online privacy initiatives in the European Union, and an explanation of the requirements of United States compliance with these policies when taking part in the European marketplace. / text

This dissertation is a collection of three essays that study the market for consumer information. The first chapter studies the role of information intermediaries and their impact on consumer privacy. The second chapter presents an analysis of signaling in credit and insurance markets through default and repayment decisions. The third chapter studies some special topics such the manipulation of credit histories by fake borrowing or deletion of records. It also identifies a learning mechanism through which uninformed consumers can endogenously learn the link between credit market behavior and insurance market outcomes. / text

published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

Pervasive digitization of human environment has dramatically changed our everyday lives. New technologies which have become an integral part of our daily routine have deeply affected our perception of the surrounding world and have opened qualitatively new opportunities. In an urban environment, the influence of such changes is especially tangible and acute. For example, ubiquitous computing (also commonly referred to as UbiComp) is a pure vision no more and has transformed the digital world dramatically. Pervasive use of smartphones, integration of processing power into various artefacts as well as the overall miniaturization of computing devices can already be witnessed on a daily basis even by laypersons. In particular, transport being an integral part of any urban ecosystem have been affected by these changes. Consequently, public transport systems have undergone transformation as well and are currently dynamically evolving. In many cities around the world, the concept of the so-called electronic ticketing (e-ticketing) is being extensively used for issuing travel permissions which may eventually result in conventional paper-based tickets being completely phased out already in the nearest future. Opal Card in Sydney, Oyster Card in London, Touch & Travel in Germany and many more are all the examples of how well the e-ticketing has been accepted both by customers and public transport companies. Despite numerous benefits provided by such e-ticketing systems for public transport, serious privacy concern arise. The main reason lies in the fact that using these systems may imply the dramatic multiplication of digital traces left by individuals, also beyond the transport scope. Unfortunately, there has been little effort so far to explicitly tackle this issue. There is still not enough motivation and public pressure imposed on industry to invest into privacy. In academia, the majority of solutions targeted at this problem quite often limit the real-world pertinence of the resultant privacy-preserving concepts due to the fact that inherent advantages of e-ticketing systems for public transport cannot be fully leveraged. This thesis is aimed at solving the aforementioned problem by providing a privacy-preserving framework which can be used for developing e-ticketing systems for public transport with privacy protection integrated from the outset. At the same time, the advantages of e-ticketing such as fine-grained billing, flexible pricing schemes, and transparent use (which are often the main drivers for public to roll out such systems) can be retained.

Thesis (DTech. degree in Computer Science and Data Processing: Software Development.)--Tshwane University of Technology, 2012. / Based on the fundamental assumption that individuals view their privacy differently, this study attempts to find a solution on how to protect the personal information of an individual stored in a relational database system against privacy violations. Secondly, to determine how the Hippocratic principles can be effectively applied to give individuals better control over their personal information, while at the same time allowing the organisation to process its transactions on the same personalised information. In answering these problems, the study established a set of extended principles to which the collection and the use of personal data should strictly hold.

Data is increasingly represented in annotated graphs, but graphs pose novel security and privacy challenges that at present lack solutions. We begin by identifying the new challenges graphs introduce and explain why existing security approaches are insufficient. / Engineering and Applied Sciences

Advances in information technology have amplified issues related to privacy and the disclosure of personal information. New technologies have enabled an explosion in the amount and variety of information created, stored, and potentially shared about people, and there has been a corresponding explosion in privacy-related concerns and conversations in academic and non-academic forums. This dissertation contributes to one such conversation, adding to our understanding of the mechanisms that shape individuals' privacy concerns in the context of disclosure of personal information. Individuals must overcome their information privacy concerns in order for personal information disclosure to take place, but the mechanisms surrounding this process are highly dependent on the context of disclosure. Accordingly, this research seeks to build understanding around the ways in which privacy concerns are mitigated or counterbalanced in three different disclosure contexts. Essay 1, positioned in the e-commerce context, contributes uniquely to an emerging stream of disclosure research that considers irrationality within the privacy disclosure decision process. Essay 2 is focused on a less frequently examined disclosure context - online social networks - and examines the tension between individuals' privacy concerns and their desire for social benefits and personal expression, focusing especially on the social network technology's ability to support impression management behavior. Finally, Essay 3 examines the mitigation of privacy concerns in the context of involuntary disclosure - increasingly common in the modern online environment - wherein the primary goal is to reduce concerns or anxiety regarding the information already disclosed. In comparing disclosure processes across these contexts, this research provides insights regarding consistencies and distinctions among the different domains. Insights gained, both within and across these contexts, are valuable to both privacy researchers and professional stakeholders.

Mixade vårdsalar, det vill säga där man blandar män och kvinnor, är något som förkommer på sjukhusen runt om i landet och bör uppmärksammas utifrån patientens perspektiv då denne är i beroendeställning av sjukvården och dess vårdmiljö. Det blir allt vanligare att sjukhusen idag har mixade vårdsalar, detta oftast på grund av tids- och platsbrist. Studiens syfte var att beskriva patienters upplevelser av att vårdas på mixad vårdsal på en akut sjukvårdsavdelning inom nedre kirurgi. Studien var kvalitativ med fenomenologisk ansats. En intervjustudie med femton patienter som hade vårdats på mixad vårdsal genomfördes och i resultatet framkom att majoriteten av patienterna upplevde det positivt att vårdas på mixad vårdsal. Patienterna upplevde en bättre stämning, mjukare jargong och en lugnare atmosfär. Det visade sig också att några inte hade reflekterat över den mixade vårdsalen. De menade att det var någonting helt normalt och att alla strävade mot samma mål, att bli friska. Dock var det några få som kände sig chockade av upplevelsen och upplevde det som integritetskränkande. Sammanfattningsvis påvisade studiens resultat att mixade vårdsalar sågs som en positiv upplevelse och något som flera patienter kunde tänka sig i fortsättningen. / Mixed sex-wards, where you mix men and women, occur in hospitals around Sweden and should be recognized by the patient´s perspective when they are in a position of the medical and healthcare environment. Today it is becoming increasingly common for hospitals to have mixed sex-wards, this is usually because the lack of time and space. The study's purpose was to describe patients' experiences of care in a mixed sex-ward on an acute medical department of the lower surgery. The study was qualitative with a phenomenological approach. An interview study with fifthteen patients who had been cared for in a mixed sex-ward was conducted. The result showed that most patients felt positive when cared for in mixed sex ward. It turned out that they experienced a better atmosphere, softer jargon and a calmer ambience. It also emerged that some had not reflected on the mixed sex ward. They argued that there was something quite normal and that all patients towards the same goal, to get well. However, it was a few who felt traumatized by the experience and felt a violation of integrity. In conclusion, the study´s results showed that the mixed sex-wards were seen as a positive experience and something that many patients would consider in the future.

No abstract available. / Thesis (MPA)-University of Durban-Westville, 1995.