گواهی حریم خصوصی شخص ثالث به عنوان استراتژی تبلیغات آنلاین: بررسی عوامل موثر در رابطه میان گواهی شخص ثالث و اعتماد اولیه

The purpose of this study is to assess the possibility of implementing an online advertising strategy using a well-known third-party privacy seal located on the order page of an unfamiliar online retailer. An online experiment was conducted with 223 participants using a 2 (third-party seal: present vs. absent) × 2 (purchase-decision involvement: low vs. high) × 2 (disposition to trust: low vs. high) × 2 (privacy-protection self-efficacy: low vs. high) between-subjects design. The results provide evidence of trust transference from a well-known third-party seal to an unfamiliar retailer website, indicating that seal presence raised initial trust in the website and that the effects of seal presence were mediated by perceived privacy empowerment. Results also indicate that the seal effects were moderated by the level of purchase-decision involvement, disposition to trust, and self-efficacy. Theoretical explanations and managerial implications are discussed.

The scale of e-commerce has grown substantially over the past decade as an alternative to brick-and-mortar stores (Fox 2008). E-commerce is convenient and time saving, but several consumer concerns have emerged with its rapid large-scale growth (Odom, Kumar, and Saunders 2002). Among these concerns, privacy has been consistently identified as the most pressing (Rifon, LaRose, and Choi 2005). To survive the highly competitive Internet marketplace, online retailers have constantly relied on customers' personal information to tailor products and services to their specific needs. However, as this information has been frequently abused by some of these online retailers, concerns about privacy have also increased (Nam et al. 2006). Specific privacy risks that Internet users face range from inadvertent disclosure of personal information, to unwanted contact (e.g., spam mail), to use of personal data by third parties, to hacking and identity theft (McCole, Ramsey, and Williams 2010). In fact, online consumers are known to be most concerned about privacy and safety, contradicting the common assumption that cost and convenience are their predominant concerns (Jiang, Jones, and Javie 2008). In light of this discovery, traditional marketing promotion efforts might not always be successful when applied to e-commerce. Third-party privacy certification has evolved as a major self-regulatory practice to address consumers' concerns about privacy during online transactions. Prior studies have investigated the effects of third-party certification on promoting initial trust in unfamiliar websites (e.g., Chang and Cheung, 2005 and Wang et al., 2004), considering that most small-scale and unknown online retailers rarely establish ongoing relationships with consumers. In other words, examining methods for building initial trust, which happens at the early stage of the consumer–retailer relationship and does not require extensive interaction, can help illuminate an important problem in e-commerce. Drop-off rates at the point of purchase at online stores (more than 30%) are known to be significantly higher than they are at offline stores (less than 3%) (Li and Chatterjee 2005). This fact derives from online consumers' concerns about privacy, for they must provide online retailers with their personal and payment information to complete purchases. However, no study has examined the effects of posting a third-party seal in a particular location on a retail website. Accordingly, the current study proposes that posting a third-party seal on the order page of an unfamiliar website would encourage both initial trust in the website and intent to purchase by alleviating privacy concerns. The absence of a theoretical explanation for the cognitive process that mediates the effects of third-party certification constitutes a major limitation of previous studies. For this reason, this study uses the construct perceived privacy empowerment (PE)—a psychological construct related to “the individual's perception of the extent to which they can control the distribution and use of their personally identifiable information” ( van Dyke, Midha, and Nemati 2007, p. 73)—as an antecedent of initial trust and explores its mediating role in the way a seal might affect initial trust. Moreover, given that few studies have paid attention to moderating factors that could affect the relationship between third-party certification and initial trust, this study examines the influences of three individual characteristic variables, purchase-decision involvement (PDI), disposition to trust (DT), and privacy-protection self-efficacy (PSE), upon the effects of third-party certification.

The purpose of this study was to assess the possibility of implementing an online advertising strategy using third-party privacy certification to build consumers' initial trust in small-scale and unfamiliar online retailers. Specifically, this study explored how third-party certification might achieve this result by testing its effect on perceived privacy empowerment, trusting beliefs, and trusting intentions, and by examining the roles of three factors, purchase-decision involvement, disposition to trust, and privacy-protection self-efficacy, in moderating the effects of third-party certification. The results of this study provide evidence of trust transference from a well-known third-party seal to an unfamiliar retailer website. Specifically, the results indicate that the presence of a third-party seal increased trusting beliefs and trusting intentions toward an unfamiliar online retailer and that the seal effects on initial trust were mediated by perceived privacy empowerment. Results also demonstrate that the seal effects on each dependent variable were moderated by purchase-decision involvement, disposition to trust, and privacy-protection self-efficacy. The absence of a theoretical explanation for the cognitive process mediating the effects of privacy assurances constitutes a major limitation of previous studies (Andrade, Kaltcheva, and Weitz 2002). In an effort to extend the existing initial trust model, therefore, this study posited two initial hypotheses to explore a series of cognitive processes involving the relationships among trusting beliefs, trusting intentions, and perceived privacy empowerment, before testing the main effects of third-party certification on the three dependent variables. First, the relationship between trusting beliefs and trusting intentions was confirmed, as predicted by the initial trust-building model of McKnight, Choudhury, and Kacmar (2002). The other two relationships, between perceived privacy empowerment and trusting beliefs and between perceived privacy empowerment and trusting intentions, were also validated. In this way, the present study provides a more detailed explanation of the way third-party certification contributes to building initial trust and, more specifically, suggests that online marketers might use the empowering influence of third-party certification to build consumers' initial trust in retailer websites with which they have no prior experience (e.g., Koufaris and Hampton-Sosa 2004). Consumers differ in their levels of purchase-decision involvement, disposition to trust, and privacy-protection self-efficacy when engaging in e-commerce. In addition to the main effects, therefore, this study examined the roles of the three moderating variables in influencing the effects of third-party certification in order to provide an explanation of the boundary conditions of seal effects. First, the results indicate that the presence of a third-party seal promoted perceived privacy empowerment, trusting beliefs, and trusting intentions only for consumers who had lower purchase-decision involvement. This finding suggests that consumers with lower levels of purchase-decision involvement tend to rely more on peripheral cues in their initial transactions with unfamiliar online retailers as a means of “instant relief” from privacy concerns. Results also indicate that the seal display raised perceived privacy empowerment, trusting beliefs, and trusting intentions of those who had lower levels of disposition to trust. This finding seems encouraging because it suggests that third-party certification might promote initial trust in unknown websites, especially for consumers who are worried about potential abuse of their personal information on the Internet. While the results for purchase-decision involvement and disposition to trust intuitively make sense and parallel existing research, the results for privacy-protection self-efficacy were partly inconsistent with previous studies. As expected, third-party certification was shown to raise trusting beliefs and trusting intentions only for consumers who had high levels of privacy-protection self-efficacy. However, contrary to the prediction, seal presence promoted perceived privacy empowerment in consumers with low levels of privacy-protection self-efficacy rather than those with high levels. This finding is interesting when compared to those of Rifon, LaRose, and Choi (2005). In particular, Rifon, LaRose, and Choi (2005) found that consumers who had low privacy self-efficacy were apt to disclose their personal information when a seal was presented on a website. Based on this finding, they argued that third-party seals could be used in a manipulative manner, misleading consumers who cannot accurately assess the website's information practices for themselves. However, the findings of the current study suggest that consumers with low privacy-protection self-efficacy might be relieved from privacy concerns to some extent but that such empowerment might not have sufficient power to increase trusting intentions (e.g., intention to disclose personal information) as well as trusting beliefs. Moreover, the seal display did not have a significant influence on perceived privacy empowerment for those with high privacy-protection self-efficacy, suggesting that these individuals might need higher perceived privacy empowerment to trust a website but that their high privacy-protection self-efficacy might lead them to interpret the seal as a sign of credibility. Consequently, although some of these mixed results were unpredicted, the overall results appear to support the proposed trust-transference mechanism. Overall, the findings of this study help explain how third-party certification plays a critical role in stimulating trust in unfamiliar websites. This study constitutes an exploratory effort, centering around the effects that posting a well-known third-party seal on the order page of an unfamiliar online retailer could have on building initial trust. In e-commerce literature, previous studies have reported the comforting effects of a third-party seal when it was displayed on the privacy policy pages or home page of an experimental website, simulating the common practices of the e-commerce industry (e.g., Miyazaki and Krishnamurthy 2002). However, it should be noted that Internet users rarely or never visit privacy policy pages in reality (Moores 2005) and that the seals displayed at the bottom of home pages could also go unnoticed unless the visitor scrolls all the way down (Farkas and Farkas 2000). Moreover, the findings of this study also indicate that third-party seal placement on the order page promoted trusting intentions as well as trusting beliefs. This finding is particularly encouraging, given that consumers' willingness to share personal information with an online retailer constitutes a major element of the trusting intentions construct (e.g., McKnight, Choudhury, and Kacmar 2002). That is, the use of third-party certification can promote consumers' readiness to rely even on an unknown online retailer based on their perception of assurance (i.e., trusting beliefs). Ultimately, this readiness can increase the chance that future interactions will take place. Finally, results show that third-party certification was effective for consumers who worried more about their privacy, that is, those who had lower levels of disposition to trust.