Privacy in the context of reciprocity: conceptualizing users’ choices
ISSN: 1468-4527
Article publication date: 4 September 2019
Issue publication date: 22 November 2019
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of reciprocity in privacy settings on the compromises and losses in utility encountered by users. The authors base our study on WhatsApp because of the inherent reciprocity in its privacy settings to understand users’ preferences and reasoning in choosing a particular setting in light of its reciprocal consequence.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors present a qualitative study whereby we conducted a series of in-depth interviews with 15 individuals, representing a range of ages, nationalities, work experience and WhatsApp usage frequency. The interviews were semi-structured and thematic analysis was employed.
Findings
The results showed that reciprocity has a strong influence on privacy choices, and users over time adjusted their settings continuously in various ways to balance the overall utility of the application and their privacy. Type of contacts, usage frequency and underlying intent in using the application significantly impact privacy choices.
Practical implications
The findings recommend improved design for Mobile Instant Messaging that enables flexible privacy configurations that can be controlled separately for different groups and for individual contacts.
Originality/value
The paper provides original insights into how reciprocity affects the utility of the application and the privacy choices of the users. The investigation is unique in that the authors know of no other study that looked into the notion of reciprocity and how it affects users’ privacy choices and preferences when built in to Mobile Instant Messaging applications. Overall, the authors believe that this paper adds significantly to a growing body of research on privacy and social media.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors share co-first authorship. This study was supported in part from Seungwon Yang’s National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1620451 and Brenton Stewart’s Russell Long Professorship in the School of Library & Information Science, Louisiana State University.
Citation
Khalil, A., Zia, H. and Abdallah, S. (2019), "Privacy in the context of reciprocity: conceptualizing users’ choices", Online Information Review, Vol. 43 No. 7, pp. 1316-1333. https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-05-2018-0171
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited