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Despite a large stake of investment by retail investors and a growing number of peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms coupled with the initiation of secondary market and strong regulatory framework, less is known what leads investors to trust in P2P (TP2P) lending platforms in a multi-ethnic country, Malaysia. This study aims to investigate the effects of individual characteristics (gender, age, ethnicity, education and income), social influence of P2P (SIP2P) lending and privacy of P2P (PP2P) lending on the trust in emerging P2P platforms.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted to collect the data from retail investors in Malaysia. A variance-based partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) model was applied to examine the significant predictors of TP2P lending platforms.

The results show that while investors' income is positively related to TP2P lending platforms, younger investors are less likely to have trust on P2P lending platforms. PP2P lending platforms increases retail investors' trust toward P2P platforms in Malaysia.

P2P service providers are suggested to give especial attention to investors' specific characteristics to develop trust and attract investors to the platforms. Service providers need to ensure the privacy of potential investors' personal and confidential data to build investors' trust.

This is the first study to assess retail investors' trust toward online P2P lending platforms in Malaysia, where this alternative financing platform gradually gaining popularity.

In this paper, the authors propose an effective mechanism for the protection of digital library readers' lending privacy under a cloud environment.

The basic idea of the method is that for each literature circulation record, before being submitted to the untrusted cloud database of a digital library for storage, its reader number has to be encrypted strictly at a client, so as to make it unable for an attacker at the cloud to know the specific reader associated with each circulation record and thus protect readers' lending privacy. Moreover, the authors design an effective method for querying the encrypted literature circulation records, so as to ensure the accuracy and efficiency of each kind of database queries related to the encrypted reader number field of literature circulation records.

Finally, both theoretical analysis and experimental evaluation demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.

This paper presents the first study attempt to the privacy protection of readers' literature circulations, which can improve the security of readers' lending privacy in the untrusted cloud, without compromising the accuracy and efficiency of each kind of database queries in the digital library. It is of positive significance to construct a privacy-preserving digital library platform.

Given the large global investments made in FinTechs and the context of Brazilian credit (which has been suffering from the effects of the crisis in the last decade), the purpose of this paper is to study the propensity of consumption of credit services offered by FinTechs of loans. In order to discover the factors that influenced the propensity to apply for FinTech loans, a theoretical model was designed, which was tested by means of a survey given to individuals who might contract loans.

The final sample consisted of 507 individuals whose data were analyzed through structural equation modeling (SEM), with estimation of partial least squares.

From the results of the research, it was possible to draw a profile of the FinTechs of Brazilian loans and also to estimate the antecedents of the propensity to utilize this type of service.

The model proposed in this work was developed to measure the propensity to consume in relation to the credit services offered by lending FinTechs.

The consumer should intensify the use of these channels to shape financial products and services to their needs, thereby democratizing access to credit, which is often restricted in quantity and quality by policies of institutions that dominate the Brazilian lending market.

Aspects such as trust, personal innovation, perceived utility, ease of use and social influence, as well as the constructs that precede them like privacy, stigma and transactional distance, explain 41.5 percent of the propensity to use services from lending FinTechs in Brazil.

First, the authors analyze the key problems faced by the protection of digital library readers' data privacy and behavior privacy. Second, the authors introduce the characteristics of all kinds of existing approaches to privacy protection and their application limitations in the protection of readers' data privacy and behavior privacy. Lastly, the authors compare the advantages and disadvantages of each kind of existing approaches in terms of security, efficiency, accuracy and practicality and analyze the challenges faced by the protection of digital library reader privacy.

In this paper, the authors review a number of research achievements relevant to privacy protection and analyze and evaluate the application limitations of them in the reader privacy protection of a digital library, consequently, establishing the constraints that an ideal approach to library reader privacy protection should meet, so as to provide references for the follow-up research of the problem.

As a result, the authors conclude that an ideal approach to reader privacy protection should be able to comprehensively improve the security of all kinds of readers' privacy information on the untrusted server-side as a whole, under the premise of not changing the architecture, efficiency, accuracy and practicality of a digital library system.

Along with the rapid development of new network technologies, such as cloud computing, the server-side of a digital library is becoming more and more untrustworthy, thereby, posing a serious threat to the privacy of library readers. In fact, the problem of reader privacy has become one of the important obstacles to the further development and application of digital libraries.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

The purpose of this paper is to report on and evaluate focus groups and privacy diary/interview methods used in a qualitative study of on‐line privacy.

The paper is a discursive evaluation of two methods employed to study on‐line privacy, informed by and situated in interpretive and constructivist approaches to knowledge.

The paper argues for the value of qualitative research methods in study of on‐line privacy. It confronts the positivist paradigm that informs much of the work in the field by foregrounding the need for methodological plurality in the study of privacy as relational, situated, dynamic and contextual. It deals with the notion of “sensitivity” as well as introducing often neglected issue of logistical challenges in qualitative research.

The paper contributes to the existing debates about the value of employment of qualitative research methods broadly, as well as in the study of on‐line privacy more specifically. It demonstrates a range of advantages and challenges in use of the two methods, providing recommendations of how to supplement them. It opens up the discussion of process of sensitizing of the participants and thus the “co‐construction” of knowledge.

Looks at the meaning of “acoustic privacy”, and how the requirement varies with the task and the factors which control it; the open plan and cellular office environment – the essential factors which should be considered; how the “acoustic data” provided by developers and manufacturers, particularly those of partition suppliers, should be interpreted; what can be done to optimize the varied uses of conference and management areas to maintain confidentiality and audibility: some dos and don′ts of audio‐visual systems; and the common problems and the remedial action which can be taken.

Although cloud storage services can bring users valuable convenience, they can be technically complex and intrinsically insecure. Therefore, this research explores the concerns of academic users regarding cloud security and technical issues and how such problems may influence their continuous use in daily life.

This qualitative study used a semi-structured interview approach comprising six main open-ended questions to explore the information security and technical issues for the continuous use of cloud storage services by 20 undergraduate students in Hong Kong.

The analysis revealed cloud storage service users' major security and technical concerns, particularly synchronization and backup issues, were the most significant technical barrier to the continuing personal use of cloud storage services.

Existing literature has focused on how cloud computing services could bring benefits and security and privacy-related risks to organizations rather than security and technical issues of personal use, especially in the Asian academic context.

This study aims to explore differences in the usability of the Google Drive application based on demographic characteristics, computer skills and use frequency of Google Drive among public library users of Lahore.

The study adopted a quantitative approach and survey-based research method to achieve the study's objectives. The cloud usability model (user perspective) has been used as a theoretical lens to guide the study objectives. It comprises five dimensions of usability – capable, personal, reliable, valuable and secure.

The findings of the study revealed that the usability of Google Drive varied statistically significantly on the basis of depending on the respondents gender, age, academic qualification, computer skills and Google Drive use frequency.

It is a valuable study since it and adds knowledge to existing literature and has implications for practice.

The findings might be helpful for cloud support teams including Google Drive as they can notice the demographic and other differences among users' perceived usability of Google Drive and can enhance certain features of usability which leads attributes to increase its usage among users.