Do Social Media Privacy Policies Matter? Evaluating the Effects of Familiarity and Privacy Seals on Cognitive Processing

News stories of security breaches and government surveillance have made Internet users more concerned about their privacy, translating perhaps to greater scrutiny of privacy policies of social media platforms and online application providers. The purpose of the research was to examine whether individuals unquestioningly accept the privacy policies of social media platforms and the extent to which individual information processing influences users' agreement. The Heuristic-Systematic Model (HSM) provided the theoretical framework for an experimental study that compared privacy policies from familiar and unfamiliar social media platforms that also varied in the presence of TRUSTe authentication signals. The results implicate heuristic processing where individuals, rather than examine the content of a policy, blindly comply in agreement. The heuristic effect was most pronounced when individuals were familiar with the social media platform. Surprisingly, the presence of a TRUSTe seal reduced decision confidence, and rather than stimulate heuristic processing, caused a more detailed assessment of the policy content.

1. Introduction

Agreeing to a privacy policy on a website continues to be an enduring routine of Internet use. While many aspects of web design, interactivity, and presentation have changed, as the sophistication of the Internet shifts from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 social media environments, privacy policies have largely remained similar to Web 1.0 in terms of content and presentation, with the only difference being the terms and conditions stated within these policies. Web 2.0 privacy policies are, however, constantly in flux because they evolve with the services offered by the social media platform and as the platform works at indemnifying itself against breaches and losses of information. For instance, Facebook has changed its privacy policy 6 times since 2005 while, until recently, Google had 60 different policies for its integrated services.