Privacy in the sharing economy: Why don't users disclose their negative experiences?

A consistent positivity bias has been found in many sharing economy platforms. Extreme positivity bias in reviews makes the review system meaningless, misleads the public, deteriorates users' trust in the sharing platform, and negatively influences consumers' participation on the platform. Considerable anecdotal evidence shows that privacy concerns are a barrier to providing honest negative reviews. However, research studies on the consumers' impact of privacy concerns on review behaviors are sparse. This study aims to fill the gap by investigating consumers' privacy concerns in writing negative reviews. Specifically, this study examines the effects of two types of privacy concerns, online privacy concerns and physical privacy concerns, on the intention to provide negative reviews and contingent factors (monetary incentive, venting negative feelings, and warning other consumers) that could influence this relationship. The study also examines the effectiveness of two fair information practices (i.e., privacy policy and anonymous feature) in mitigating privacy concerns. We evaluate our research model using a scenario-based online survey, providing broad support for our hypotheses. The study delineates the implications of the results for both practice and research.

Automated summary

A consistent positivity bias is found in many sharing economy platforms, which leads to meaningless review systems, misleads the public, deteriorates users' trust, and negatively affects consumers' participation. However, there is limited research on the impact of privacy concerns on review behaviors. This study aims to investigate consumers' privacy concerns in writing negative reviews and the effects of these concerns on review intentions, as well as the influence of contingent factors. The study also examines the effectiveness of two fair information practices in mitigating privacy concerns.