Affiliation:
1. Temple UniverSity, USA,
2. Temple UniverSity, USA
Abstract
Several surveys attest to growing public concerns regarding privacy, aggravated by the diffusion of information technologies. A policy of self-regulation that allows individual companies to implement self-designed privacy statements is prevalent in the United States. These statements rarely provide specific privacy guarantees that personal information will be kept confidential. This study provides a discourse analysis of such privacy statements to determine their overall efficacy as a policy measure. The in-depth analysis of privacy statements revealed that they offer little protection to the consumer, instead serving to authorize business practices which allow companies to profit from consumer data. Using public good theory as a foundation, policy implications are discussed.
Subject
Sociology and Political Science,Communication
Reference33 articles.
1. Bates, B.J. (1988) `Information as an Economic Good: Sources of Individual and Social Value', in V. Mosco and J. Wasko (eds) The Political Economy of Information, pp. 76—94. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
2. TRUSTe
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