Evaluation of the effectiveness of information privacy protection awareness for e-commerce consumers

As ubiquitous technological advances keep evolving, this has transformed traditional ways of conducting business across many spheres around the globe, from traditional classroom learning to online learning, brick and mortar shopping to online shopping. Recently many consumers have adopted the concept of shopping online more than ever before, which for the convenience of shopping anywhere, anytime and more product information.However, the trend of shopping online introduces personal information privacy related challenges to consumers due to their compromised personal information. The lack of information privacy protection awareness among some online consumers has resulted in violated personal information privacy issues which has led to consumers being victims of unwanted marketing targets, cybercrimes such as identity thefts and email fraud. Affected consumers are usually faced with serious legal battles and financial crisis while trying to rectify the situation of their compromised personal information. This study attempts to enlighten online consumers on how to protect themselves when shopping online by raising their personal information privacy protection awareness. To achieve this objective, an artefact (Microsoft PowerPoint presentation) was created and circulated among consumers followed by a web-based questionnaire to determine the level of online consumer’s information privacy protection awareness.Upon receiving responses from the full questionnaire, the results were then graphed/ tabulated and reviewed to identify the level of awareness on information privacy amongst the sample of participants and additionally to gain insight if these participants have gained any knowledge and tips from the article they have read. The results of the questionnaire highlighted the lack of information privacy protection awareness among consumers and the need for further awareness and education in this regard.