When changing the look of privacy policies affects user trust: An experimental study

The majority of Internet users do not read privacy policies because of their lengthy verbose format, although they are still the main source of information for users about how their data are collected and used. Consequently, as shown by many studies, users do not trust online services with respect to the use of their private data. Furthermore, they find it unfair that their data are used to generate revenue by online services without their knowledge or without their benefit from this. In this paper, we take as main assumption that the control of their private data and also caring about their interests would restore the trust of users. Based on an empirical model, we conducted an experimental comparative study of user trust by offering to two groups of participants the possibility to adhere to a service with a privacy policy presented in one of two different formats: the first, a conventional privacy policy and the second, designed according to the privacy policy model studied in this paper. We collected, through a survey, 717 responses from participants. The results show that allowing personalization and management in privacy policies affects user trust and makes online services appear more trustworthy to their users. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.