The effect of privacy choice in cookie notices on consumers' perceived fairness of frequent price changes

Abstract

Recent regulatory changes (i.e., General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union) enforce that seller (e.g., retail and service) and all other websites disclose through cookie notices which data they collect and store. At the same time, websites must allow consumers to disagree to the tracking of their browsing behavior. Despite sellers' concern about the loss of consumer insights-as consumers might disagree to the collection of their browsing data-cookie notices might also have a surprising sideeffect: Consumers might accept frequent price changes (from personalized or dynamic pricing) more readily, if they agree through a cookie notice that their behavior can be tracked. Specifically, two experimental studies show that consent to the tracking of browsing behavior increases consumers internal attribution of a price change, as consumers attribute the cause of the change (here: giving up data) to themselves. This increases price fairness perceptions and, in turn, purchase intent. As a result, for online sellers of goods or services the implementation of cookie notice should no longer be thought as a matter to be avoided, but rather a trade-off decision: Loss of a part of consumer insights versus higher acceptance of data-driven marketing mix decisions, such as frequent price changes.

Personal information disclosure on social networking sites

“…Individuals are motivated to develop and confirm their self-identity regarding social groups (Hogg et al, 1995;Islam, 2014;Tajfel & Turner, 1979). In the context of this While Schmidt et al (2020) focused on purchase behavior in response to price changes online, the current study extends our knowledge of information disclosure and its impact on priceirrelevant behavior (i.e., social media brand page engagement).…”

“…The antecedents of consumer-social networking site identification and information disclosure can be used in further research to better understand behavioral outcomes of consumer brand engagement, such as purchases, word-of-mouth communications, and customer loyalty.The current research broadens our understanding of the information disclosure effect on online consumer behavior. It builds on recent literature indicating that consumers' online information disclosure influences their subsequent behavior Schmidt et al (2020). demonstrated that consumers who consent to online information sharing on a website are more likely to accept price changes on the website since they attribute the price change to their own behavior.…”

Using extended complexity theory to test SMEs’ adoption of Blockchain-based loan system

“…Therefore, financial institutions should reward companies that use this system with lower loan interest rates. Perceived fairness proved to have a significant positive effect on usage intention [62,63], which indicates that the government should play the role of a supervisor. On the one hand, the government can easily find unfair loan decisions made by financial institutions through the system.…”

Counteracting consumer subversion: Organizational privacy ethical care as driver of online information sharing

“…Second, environmental dimensions such as government legislation or privacy notices (Culnan & Bies, 2003). And finally, organizational dimensions, that is, firm transparency and personalization of services through technical solutions adopted by organizations to protect users' privacy, such as opt‐in technology allowing for greater data control by consumers or the exchange of privacy for price changes (Aguirre et al, 2015; Hong et al, 2019; Martin, 2015; Schmidt et al, 2020).…”

“…Prior research suggests that consumer privacy subversion behavior can be overcome by organizational privacy‐enhancing factors (Aguirre et al, 2015; Foxman & Kilcoyne, 1993; Martin & Murphy, 2017; Nill & Aalberts, 2014). Building on a justice‐based perspective, research has noted that firms can increase consumers' perceived control over their information, thus increasing their willingness to share (Culnan & Bies, 2003; Etzioni, 2019; Schmidt et al, 2020). Using rational motives for moral/ethical reasoning, other studies have found that firms can increase information sharing by generating trust in the organization (Culnan & Bies, 2003; Limbu et al, 2012).…”