An Empirical Analysis of Consumers’ Perceptions of Privacy Protection

Abstract

This study explores how consumers perceive privacy protection and how their perceptions differ by different demographic factors like gender, profession, education and marital status. The study focuses on one of the dimensions of privacy which is privacy protection. In India studies have been done to understand consumer attitudes and concern towards privacy issues but relationship between demographic variables and consumers’ perception of privacy issues have not been researched. The descriptive research design is being used to study the formulated problem. Non-Probability convenient Random sampling technique has been used for research. Chi-square test has been used to test the relationship as the variables under study are categorical. Findings of the study revealed that when it comes to safety of personal information on smartphones profession as a demographic variable has significant effect on consumers’ perception of privacy protection. Marital status as a demographic variable also has effect on consumers’ perception of privacy protection on social networking websites. Married respondents are seen to be more apprehensive of their privacy protection on social networking websites. As most of the customers do not hesitate in sharing their personal information with service providers it has positive implications for the companies.