The authors of this study analysed the increasing use of personalized marketing and consumer concerns regarding the access to personal information. The purpose was to find out how companies could react to these concerns. Several theoretical concepts were explored, such as Personal Data, Personalized Marketing, Privacy Concerns, Privacy Policies, Consumer Trust and Consumer Behaviour. Facebook Inc. was analysed as an example to address the problem. An online survey was conducted on university students and two interviews were performed with representatives from the Data Inspection Board in Sweden. The main findings were that individuals seem to approve of personalized marketing but are concerned about their privacy. Companies should therefore inform their consumers on how personal data is used for personalized marketing and respect their rights and take governmental regulations into consideration.

This thesis elaborates on the design process of a mobile phone based application for indoor positioning at workplaces. The aim of the application is to ease workflow management and help increase the work efficiency of individuals and teams by reducing the amount of time spent in looking and waiting for each other. In doing so, the research takes a closer look on the user’s perspective on sharing one’s location data. An attempt is made to explore users’ behavior, investigating if any privacy concerns arise out of sharing one’s indoor location data and how it effects the adoption of the service within the context of a workspace. This exploratory approach employed a number of qualitative tools in order to gather data and analyze it. In order to understand the complex context of a work environment where activities (or actions) are defined by a number of factors, actors, mediators, communication channels, etc., the research followed an activity centred approach. The resulting solution is in the form of a service that provides layers of contextual information, responding to the overall activity being performed and the smaller actions that constitute it. A prototype of this application is then taken for user testing. The test results show that the users were hesitant in sharing their location data; citing a number of speculated scenarios where this information may be used in ways that induced a sense of being spied upon. However, in the overall acceptance and adoption of the system, the context of use (the workspace) was found to play a very crucial role.

Background:                With the increasing use of personalized marketing and the increasing ability to collect information on consumers, the consumers’ concern of privacy is increasing. Therefore it is important to understand what effects privacy concern, and how marketers can minimize this concern. Previous research suggest that factors such as computer knowledge, internet knowledge, and regulation awareness all affect privacy concern, however we believe that these are all related to each other in a construct we call Privacy Knowledge. Purpose:                        To investigate the construct of Privacy Knowledge and to what degree it influences a consumer’s attitude towards informational privacy. Method:                        In order to validate the Privacy Knowledge construct and measure its relationship to Privacy Concern we employed a deductive methodology which was comprised of questionnaires. The questionnaires were composed of summative Likert Scales, three of which had been previous validated by previous research. We utilized a quota sampling technique in order to gather enough data from each age group. The results were then analyzed by tools such as Factor Analysis, ANOVA tests, and Multiple Regression Analysis. Conclusion:                   Through the Factor Analysis we found that the factors Internet Knowledge, Computer Knowledge, and Regulation Awareness were better organized as Basic IT Knowledge, Advanced IT Knowledge and Regulation Awareness. Privacy Knowledge was found to be positively related to Privacy Concern. However we could only conclude of the three factors which make up Privacy Knowledge, Basic IT Knowledge had an effect on Privacy Concern. We believe this is due to the exclusion of other factors affecting Privacy Concern such as situational factors and suggest conducting further research on the matter including these variables.

Background Big Data Analytics take place in almost every sector of new business world. Nowadays, banks are also adopting Big Data to handle the huge number of data that generate every day. Big Data helps banks to provide a fast, personalised service in a cost efficient way. On the other hand, Big Data has some privacy issues as it deals with a lot of data that can be decoded by third party. It is also the case in online banking as it is involved with personal and financial information. Privacy concerns also vary among different cultures. PurposeThe purpose of this cross-cultural study is to investigate online privacy concerns in the context of Big Data MethodologyA quantitative approach has been followed and data were collected through an online survey to understand the relations between variables. ConclusionThe findings indicate that the relationship between the privacy concern and its antecedents differ between France and Bangladesh. Though for both countries, the desire upon transparency showed a significant positive relationship with online privacy concerns. Additionally, for both countries a high privacy concern will not conduct to lower consumer trust and consumer engagement in online baking. The findings involving moderator variables were not significant at al

Information privacy is a major concern for consumers adopting emerging technologies dependent on location-based services. This study sought to determine whether a relationship exists among factors of personalization, locatability, perceived playfulness, privacy concern and behavioral intention to disclose personal information for individuals using location-based, geosocial networking applications. Questionnaire responses from undergraduate students at a 4-year university provide insight into these relationships. Multiple regression results indicated that there was a statistically significant relationship between the four significant predictor variables and the dependent variable. Analysis of beta weights, structure coefficients, and commonality analysis shed light on the variance attributable to the predictor variables of the study. Findings provide understanding of the specific factors examined in the study and have implications for consumers, businesses, application designers, and policymakers. The results from this study contribute to an understanding of technology acceptance theory and offer insight into competing beliefs that may affect an individual’s behavioral intention to disclose personal information. Knowledge gained form the study may be useful for overcoming challenges related to consumer adoption of location-based services that require disclosure of personal information.

During recent years, the global digital transformation has led to changes in the advertising industry, where advertisers use new strategies to reach customers to advertise their products and services. Online behavioral advertising emerged as a new advertising process, which allowed companies to collect and use online behavior to create tailored personalized advertisements. Online behavioral advertising has led to privacy concerns. The purpose of this study is to examine the viewpoint on online behavioral advertising for students in Sweden. By reviewing previous literature on the subject of online behavioral advertising this study constructed statements that examined the attitude of students in Sweden on privacy concerns, privacy violations, advertising avoidance as well as advertising acceptance. This study examined this by sending out an online questionnaire to a sample of students attending LTU (Luleå University of Technology). By analyzing the empirical findings this study found that students are somewhat indifferent about statements on online behavioral advertising. They are somewhat concerned about their privacy but not as intensely as previous research would suggest. Students at LTU are also indifferent about avoiding these types of advertisements. Concerning advertising acceptance, students at LTU are somewhat indifferent and tilted towards disagreement regardless of how the argument is framed for allowing behavioral tracking.

I samband med att människor idag är uppkopplade på internet i en större utsträckning har det bidragit till att allt fler människor har anslutit sig till sociala medier, varav Facebook är det största sociala nätverket. Detta har i sin tur resulterat i att företag ökar sina investeringar i Facebook och behövt ändra sin marknadsföringsverksamhet genom att de intressebaserar annonser utifrån konsumenters online-aktiviteter. Detta aktuella fenomen kallas för Online Behavioural Adveritising (OBA) där tidigare forskning har diskuterat problematiken som föreligger. Det råder en brist på kunskap om OBA bland konsumenter och konsumenter upplever även oro kring deras personliga integritet. Det är därmed av intresse att undersöka om en sådan kunskapsbrist är en potentiell risk till konsumenters upplevda oro. Denna studie ämnar att bidra med ökad förståelse för relevansen av kunskap kring Online Behavioural Advertising och hur det i sin tur påverkar konsumenters upplevda oro. Grundtanken är att ur ett konsumentperspektiv belysa kunskapens roll i den upplevda oron OBA skapar kring personlig integritet på Facebook. Utifrån den problematik som har beskrivits har två frågeställning formulerats: Vilken samt hur mycket kunskap har konsumenter på Facebook kring hur Online Behavioural Advertising fungerar? Hur påverkas konsumenters upplevda oro kring Online Behavioural Advertising av deras kunskap? Dessa frågeställningar har besvarats genom en kvalitativ forskningsmetodik där empirin har samlats in utifrån 16 stycken individuella intervjuer. Empirin analyserades därmed med en jämförelse av tidigare forskning och teorier. Resultatet tyder på att konsumenters upplevda oro kan bero på deras kunskap kring OBA. De respondenter som besatt en högre grad av kunskap om OBA kände ingen oro och respondenter som besatt lite kunskap om OBA kände generellt mer oro. / Due to the fact that the majority of people today are connected to the Internet, it has contributed to more and more people joining social media, where Facebook is the largest social network. This has resulted in companies increasing their investments in Facebook and changing their marketing activities by individually targeting their advertisements based on consumers online behaviour. This phenomenon is called Online Behavioral Advertising (OBA), where researchers have discussed existing problems concerning the area. There is a lack of knowledge about OBA among consumers and they also feel concerned about their privacy. Therefore, it is of interest to investigate if such a lack of knowledge is a potential risk to consumers' perceived concern. This study aims to provide with a better understanding of the relevance of knowledge about Online Behavioral Advertising and its effects on perceived concerns regarding OBA. Primarily, the idea is to highlight the role of knowledge in the perceived concerns that OBA creates regarding personal integrity on Facebook. Based on the purpose, the following research questions have been formulated: What and how much knowledge do consumers have on Facebook about how Online Behavioral Advertising works? How are consumer’s privacy concerns about Online Behavioral Advertising affected by their knowledge? These questions have been answered by a qualitative research methodology where empirical findings have been collected based on 16 individual interviews. The empirical data was analyzed by comparing previous research and theories. The results indicate that consumers' perceived concerns may be due to their knowledge regarding OBA. The respondents who possessed a higher degree of knowledge about OBA were not concerned and respondents who possessed little knowledge about OBA felt more concerned in general.

Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka föräldrars delande om sina barn på sociala medier (sharenting) och om det finns ett samband med oro för integritet på nätet och hänsyn till barnets känslor och åsikt om delande. Bekvämlighetsurvalet bestod av 78 föräldrar med minst ett barn under 18 år. Data samlades in genom en webbenkät som publicerades på ett flertal olika forum online där föräldrar fick besvara frågor om delande om sitt barn på sociala medier, oro för integritet på nätet och hänsyn till barnets känslor och åsikt om delande. Studiens resultat påvisade att det inte fanns samband mellan sharenting och oro för integritet på nätet eller hänsyn till barnets känslor och åsikt om delande. Frekvensen av föräldrarnas allmänna delande på sociala medier hade ett signifikant samband med sharenting och barnets ålder påverkade vissa aspekter av sharenting. I diskussionen togs möjliga förklaringar till resultaten upp. / The aim of this study was to investigate the phenomenon of parents sharing photos and information about their children on social media (sharenting), and its relation to privacy concerns online and parents’ regard to childrens’ feelings and opinions about what is shared. The convenience sample consisted of 78 parents with at least one child under 18 years of age. Data was collected through an online survey which was published on several different online forums, in which parents received questions about sharenting, privacy concerns online and their regard to childrens’ feelings and opinions about what is shared. The results of this study showed no correlation between sharenting and privacy concerns online or parent’s regards to childrens’ feelings and opinions about what is shared. On the other hand, the results showed that the parents' general habit of posting on social media was significantly correlated to sharenting, and that childrens’ age influenced some aspects of sharenting. The discussion contains possible explanations to the results.

Online users struggle with different concerns whenever they use information systems. According to Miyazaki and Fernandez (2001), there are three important categories of concerns for online users: privacy concern, third party fraudulent behavior concern ("system security"), and online website fraudulent behavior concern ("security"). Kim, Sivasailam, and Rao (2004) proposed a similar categorization for web assurance dimensions. They argue that online websites are supposed to address users' privacy, security, and business integrity concerns to decrease user concerns. Although several researchers tried to answer how different factors affect these concerns and how these concerns affect users' behavior, there are so many ambiguities and contradictions in this area. This Essay I in this work develops a comprehensive map of the role of online privacy concern to identify related factors and categorize them through an in-depth literature review and conducting meta-analysis on online privacy concern. Although users have concerns about their privacy and security, there is still growth in the number of internet users and electronic commerce market share. One possible reason is that websites are applying assurance mechanisms to ensure the privacy of their users. Therefore, it could be an interesting research topic to investigate how privacy assurance mechanisms affect users concern and, consequently, their behavior in different concerns such as e-commerce and social networking sites. Different types of web assurance mechanisms are used by websites. The most prevalent among these assurance mechanisms include web assurance seals and assurance statements and privacy customization features. Essay II and III aims to address how these mechanisms influence e-commerce and social networking sites users' behavior. Essay II applies the procedural fairness theory by Lind and Tyler (1988) to explain how and why the web assurance mechanisms affect consumers' perceived risks. Essay III addresses the issue of self-disclosure on social networking sites. Applying protection motivation theory, this study aims to evaluate the effect of web assurance mechanisms on online privacy concern and self-disclosure behavior on the social networking sites.

The computer game industry has during the past years performed a paradigm shift from physical to digital online retailing based on game portals. Due to the many possibilities Big Data in combination with personalized marketing provides, especially in the form on in-game shops in the software, it is interesting for the computer game companies to investigate how this marketing approach can be performed most beneficially. Since the computer game industry has not been thoroughly investigated in relation to personalized marketing and customer integrity, it has in this study been performed as a predictive research, based on how personalized marketing is used in other industries. This benchmark has been combined with a literature study as well as a case study on a Swedish computer game company, Paradox Interactive in the form of personal interviews, a customer survey as well as gathering of internal data. The analysis of the chosen industries, the grocery store industry, the travel and hospitality industry as well the online gambling industry, demonstrates the importance of offering the customers relevant marketing offers that benefits the customers as well as the company. This approach has been shown to imply a positive spiral of increased customer loyalty and raised revenue for the company. The performed customer surveys emphasizes high loyalty, satisfied customers, positive attitude for a loyalty program as well as for an in-game shop as well as a majority of positively minded customers for personalized marketing. The negatively minded was shown to be affected by data security, the feeling of being monitored as well as the fear for data spread. The investigation further shows a high level of technology knowledge among the computer game customers. This increases the importance of offering high data security as well as describes the used approaches for the customers. Based on these results recommendations related to the implementation of personalized marketing was developed for computer game companies. These emphasizes the importance of using secure techniques related to the data security and the explicit information related to this, which is argued to lead to increased trust amongst the customers and an increased willingness to share personal data. Further the data and information related to the customers should be gathered from different sources and be analyzed together in order to increase the deep of the knowledge about the customers, which enables more accurate and relevant offers. This relevance should be high, but well balanced in relation to the negative aspects related to customers’ possible feeling of being monitored.   For increased knowledge about the customers as well improved customer loyalty the computer game companies should implement loyalty programs, which should be well aligned with the image of the company. This study contributes to the theoretical field related to personalized marketing by investigating how current models and theories aligns with, or should be modified in order to match, the computer game industry. Besides from this it contributes with theories related to data security within the field of personalized marketing, focused on personal integrity and privacy. Theories related to the importance of trust from the customers and the relation between trust and loyalty has been verified for the computer game industry. The importance of identifying a well-balanced level of the personalization has been verified, which in turn falsifies the theories emphasizing that maximized personalization is to strive for. Theories related to key aspects to take into consideration related to data security and handling of personal data has been verified for the computer game industry related to the handling of Big Data. / Dataspelsindustrin har under åren gjort en resa från fysisk försäljning i butik till digital försäljning via spelportaler på internet. I och med de många möjligheter Big Data i kombination med personlig marknadsföring möjliggör, speciellt i formatet av en inbyggd försäljningskanal inuti mjukvaran, är det av stort intresse för företag i spelbranschen att undersöka hur personlig marknadsföring mest fördelaktigt utförs.  I och med att dataspelinsdustrin ej blivit undersökt med avseende på personlig marknadsföring och kunders integritet tidigare, har detta utförts i form av en förutsägande undersökning baserat på användning av personlig marknadsföring i andra industrier. Denna utvärderande analys har kombinerats med en litteraturstudie samt en fallstudie på det svenska dataspelsföretaget Paradox Interactive i form av intervjuer, en kundenkät samt insamling av intern data. Analysen av de valda industrierna, matvaruhandeln, rese- och hotellindustrin och onlinespelindustrin, påvisar vikten av att erbjuda kunderna relevanta erbjudanden som i längden gynnar såväl kunden som företaget. Detta har påvisats leda till en god spiral av ökad kundlojalitet och ekonomisk vinst för företaget. Utförda kundundersökningar påvisar hög lojalitet, nöjda kunder, positiv attityd till sålväl en inbyggd butik i mjukvaran som ett lojalitetsprogram samt en övervägande andel positiva attityder för personlig marknadsföring. De negativt inställda påverkas av såväl datasäkerheten, känslan av att vara övervakad samt rädslan för att data sprids till tredje part. Undersökningen visar även på en hög kunskapsnivå inom data hos kunderna, vilket höjer vikten av att erbjuda hög säkerhet och även av att förmedla detta till dem. Baserat på dessa resultat har rekommendation gällande implementationen av personlig marknadsföring tagit fram för dataspelsföretag. Dessa framhäver vikten av att ha hög datasäkerhet och förmedla detta till kunderna, vilket i sin tur gör kunderna mer trygga och villiga att dela personlig information. Vidare bör data och information om kunderna skall samlas in från olika kanaler och analyseras tillsammans i syfte att öka kunskapem om kunder, vilket ger möjligheten att erbjuda kunderna mer träffsäkra och relevanta erbjudanden. Denna relevans skall vara hög, men väl avvägd mot den negativa effekten som uppstår om kunden känner sig övervakad.   För utökad kunskap om kunderna och samtidigt generera höjd kundlojalitet skall företag i industrin implementera lojalitetsprogram, vilka skall vara enhetlig med företagets framtoning. Detta arbete bidrar till teorier inom personlig markandsföring genom att undersöka hur rådande teorier och modeller passar eller skall ändras för att matcha dataspelindustrin. Utöver detta bidrar arbetet till teorier gällande datasäkerhet inom området personlig markandsföring, med fokus på integritet och privatliv. Teorier gällande vikten av fötroende från kunderna och sambandet mellan förtroende och lojalitet har påvisats stämma för dataspelindustrin. Vikten av att hitta ett mellanläge för markandsförings relevans har påvisats stämma, vilket i sin tur dementerar teorier som påvisar att maximal relevans är eftertraktat. Teorier gällande huvudaspekter att ta hänsyn till gällande datasäkerhet och behandling av personlig data har påvisats stämma för datapselindustrin relaterat till behandlingen av Big Data.