Communication Privacy Management in Electronic Commerce

This study applies Petronio's Communication Privacy Management theory (CPM) to understand the tension between information disclosure and privacy within e-commerce relationships. It proposes that consumers manage their privacy concerns through decisions to reveal or conceal information about themselves in interactions with online retailers. The study investigates the degree to which privacy management strategies identified by CPM theory to regulate privacy and disclosure within interpersonal relationships, including withholding and falsifying information, as well as seeking information seeking from a relational partner, operate in the computer-mediated context of e-commerce relational transactions. Findings suggest that online consumers do erect boundaries around personal information and form rules to decide when to reveal information that are consistent with CPM theory. Overall, this study provides knowledge about privacy in online commercial transactions, serves as a basis for more directed theory construction in this arena, and has important practical and policy implications.