Understanding Privacy Online: Development of a Social Contract Approach to Privacy

By Kirsten E. Martin. 2016

177 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Recent scholarship in philosophy, law, and information systems suggests that respecting privacy entails understanding the implicit privacy norms about what, why, and to whom information is shared within specific relationships. These social contracts are important to understand if firms are to adequately manage the privacy expectations of stakeholders. This paper explores a social contract approach to developing, acknowledging, and protecting privacy norms within specific contexts. While privacy as a social contract—a mutually beneficial agreement within a community about sharing and using information—has been introduced theoretically and empirically, the full impact on firms of an alternative framework to respecting the privacy expectations of stakeholders has not been examined. The goal of this paper is to examine how privacy norms develop through social contract’s narrative, to redescribe privacy violations given the social contract approach, and to critically examine the role of business as a contractor in developing privacy norms. A social contract narrative dealing specifically with issues of privacy is an important next step in exploring a social contract approach to privacy. Here, the narrative is used to explain to analyze the dynamic process of privacy norm generation within particular communities. Based on this narrative, individuals within a given community discriminately share information with a particular set of obligations in mind as to who has access to the information and how it will be used. Rather than giving away privacy, individuals discriminately share information within a particular community and with norms governing the use of their information. Similar to contractual business ethics’ impact on global commerce in explaining how and why norms vary across global contexts, the social contract approach to privacy explains how and why norms vary across communities of actors. Focusing on agreements around privacy expectations shifts the responsibility of firms from adequate notification to the responsibility of firms as contractors to maintain a mutually beneficial and sustainable solution.

Subfields: Information Systems, Marketing, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ca5eabb77213d9958f25dffd626cc96a3c92858e

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Information Systems

1. Simon Schafheitle
2. Ulrich Leicht‐Deobald
3. Antoinette Weibel
4. Isabelle Wildhaber
5. Thorsten Busch
6. G. Kasper
7. C. Schank
8. Shahriar Akter

In Marketing

1. Shahriar Akter
2. Ruwan Bandara
3. Mário Fernando
4. Kirsten E. Martin

In Sociology and Political Science

1. Simon Schafheitle
2. Ulrich Leicht‐Deobald
3. Antoinette Weibel
4. Shahriar Akter
5. Isabelle Wildhaber
6. Thorsten Busch
7. G. Kasper
8. Ruwan Bandara

Citations in the corpus

• The Challenges of Algorithm-Based HR Decision-Making for Personal Integrity (2019, background): “In fact, an organization willingly limiting its data extraction efforts might generate a competitive advantage by attracting top talent and improving its image (Hasselbalch and Tranberg 2016; Martin 2016).”
• The penalty for privacy violations: How privacy violations impact trust online (2018, background): “Respecting privacy means respecting the norms of what information is gathered, how information is used, and with whom information is shared; violating privacy means violating those information norms (Martin, 2016b; Nissenbaum, 2010).”
• Explicating the privacy paradox: A qualitative inquiry of online shopping consumers (2020, background): “The social contracts can include perceptions about legal procedures as well as hypothetical and moral norms governing a particular exchange (Martin, 2016b).”