Location privacy online

What is it about?

The aim of the study is to explore cross-cultural differences in users’ location privacy behaviour on LBSNs (location-based social networks) in China, the Netherlands and Korea. The study suggests evidence that Chinese, Dutch and Korean users exhibit different location privacy concerns, attitudes to social influence, perceived privacy control and willingness to share location-related information on LBSNs. The results show that in general, the more concerned users are about location privacy, the less they are willing to share and it also suggests that location privacy concern and social influence affect each other. Furthermore, the more control people perceive they have over their privacy, the more they are willing to share location information. A negative relationship between willingness to share location information and users’ actual sharing of location information was seen. In short, it is concluded that the relation between cultural values and location privacy behaviours only have a partial connection.

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Why is it important?

Privacy is a basic and fundamental right and it is undeniable that privacy is deeply permeated throughout our everyday life. Privacy comprises many aspects so it is hard to describe with one unified definition, but generally it is defined as the claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others, or the capacity to control the information about oneself that is available to others.

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