Online Privacy Concerns: Introducing the effects of an individuals’ perception of privacy regulation to the APCO Macro model

Abstract: With rising privacy concerns of individuals, the EU parliament actively starts protecting the privacy of its citizens with enforcement of the GDPR. This study examines if enforcement of GDPR will lead to an individuals’ lower privacy concerns and higher trust beliefs with regard to E-commerce companies. The APCO framework is followed. Besides using already existing constructs within this framework, two new constructs were formed and tested. Re-spectively, perceived privacy regulation knowledge and perceived privacy regulation aware-ness. A pilot test and evaluation panel was used to increase the validity of these new con-structs before using them in the final survey. This survey examined the relationship between 5 constructs and the influence of four groups based on the covariates. 217 valid responses were acquired from both an online sample (N=127) and a field sample (N=90). PLS-SEM is used to examine the outcomes. Proof is provided for the relation between how individuals perceive governmental privacy regulations and the constructs privacy concerns and trust beliefs. However, this relation does not hold for the sample as a whole, but is dependent on the groups: age, education, gender and previous privacy invasion. Furthermore, empirical justification is found confirming already established relations in the APCO framework.