Privacy-deprived e-commerce: the efficacy of consumer privacy policies on China's e-commerce websites from a legal perspective

Abstract

PurposeDespite grave public concerns over information privacy and ongoing academic explorations of privacy policy, there is a general lack of understanding toward this issue in the legal context in China, the largest e-commerce market in the world. Departing from the extant literature of general discussion in nature, the authors undertook an exploratory study on the efficacy of e-commerce websites' privacy policies in China from the legal perspective.Design/methodology/approachThe authors drew on a qualitative grounded theory approach to identify selective codes relating to the focal issue and established a theoretical framework therefrom. The authors then conducted theoretical integration by linking them to the Theory of Development Blocks and the System Justification Theory.FindingsThe research identifies a general distrust of Chinese consumers toward privacy policies and highlights that despite their growing concerns about privacy, the privacy policies are largely ineffective in reflecting legal enforcement, changing their perceptions or influencing purchase behaviors. It also reveals that the current Chinese legislation is unable to fully render consumers' confidence in e-commerce websites' privacy policies effectiveness and privacy protection due to its limited recognition and influences among them.Originality/valueThe research has multiple ramifications. The authors empirically confirmed a mismatch between customers' perception of privacy policies and their actual behaviors and then theoretically explained the seemingly conflicting scenario in the context of development block of legal enforcement and system justification. The authors theorized the absence of the legal enforcement in privacy policies to supplement the legal perspective to the literature. The research further leads us to suggest that the time has come to update and strongly enforce privacy regulation in China to fuel the further development of e-commerce sector in practice.

Cross-Border E-Commerce Development and Challenges in China: A Systematic Literature Review

“…As a result, the staff need time to conduct supervision and levy taxes, and, consequently, the willingness and desire for cross-border e-business cannot be met. Subsequently, [23,26] highlighted the contemporary issues in the duties management of cross-border e-business transactions; these issues include ensuring adequate oversight of small items, determination of the tax rate to levy on cross-border e-products, and the turnaround time when returning and exchanging commodities [48]. Therefore, adequate measures should to be implemented to adjust the effectiveness of the duties.…”

The Effect of Brand Image, Website Quality, and Trust Towards Customer Loyalty in the Indonesian Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) E-Commerce Business

“…The questionnaire contains 14 items that represent all the variables assessed in this study. Among those 14 [24]. Furthermore, a 7-Point Likert Scale method was also implemented as the measurement scale to assess the respondents' response toward the questionnaire, in which each respondent could show their response regarding each and every statement included in the questionnaire, which ranges between "1" as strong disagreement and "7" as strong agreement toward the statement.…”

“…E-Commerce has been determined and considered as one of the most-developed business sectors in the world. Furthermore, several authors have also suggested and stated that compared to other sectors, such as the automotive, healthcare, and smartphone business, the ecommerce stands out as one of the most promising and highly-developed sectors not only in the world, but also in Asia and Indonesia due to its constantly-increasing growth-rate and the rapid increase of market value of each company within the industry [19] [24]. Moreover, ecommerce has also been classified as one out of ten most promising industries for people or investors to invest their money in [6].…”

Comparative study of personal data protection regulations in Indonesia, Hong Kong and Malaysia

“…Article 12 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights 1948 recognized privacy as a fundamental human right (Combe, 2009; Schöpfel, 2016; Zhu et al , 2020). Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states that “no one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with this privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honor and reputation” and that “everyone has the right for the legal protection against such interference or attacks.” Article 21 of the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) Human Rights Declaration also explicitly recognized privacy as a human right (Greenleaf, 2011).…”

“…In the context of personal data protection, many empirical studies have investigated many of its aspects. Zhu et al (2020) identified that there is a general distrust among Chinese consumers toward national privacy policies and highlighted that the existing legal enforcement of privacy policies remains largely ineffective despite growing concerns, affecting their perceptions and behaviors in buying. Their paper reveals that the existing Chinese legislation, due to its limited recognition and influence among consumers, is currently not capable to fully build their confidence in the effectiveness of websites’ privacy policies and protection measures (Zhu et al , 2020).…”