Privacy online: Exploring consumers’ evaluation of privacy issues in relation to personalised advertisement when buying online

Abstract: Background The development of the Internet has changed the direction of advertising. Personalised advertising has emerged as the most effective and most profitable form of advertisement. Although personalised advertisement has been praised by many, privacy related concerns have been raised since it can be perceived as a violation of the consumer's privacy. Online shopping is another activity growing on the Internet, which also raises concerns about privacy. Therefore, we find it interesting to look on how personalised advertisement in relation to privacy issues can affect the consumer when buying online. Purpose The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how online shoppers respond to privacy issues and personalised advertising. The research will focus on the shoppers’ perspective of privacy issues with personalised advertising online. It will also provide companies with useful insights into customer behaviour when shopping online, with the intention of evaluating various forms of personalised advertisement and their effectiveness in order to strengthen companies’ online personalised marketing campaigns. Method As multiple explanations to one and the same research question are sought, the research will be conducted from an interpretivist standpoint. A qualitative research method has been chosen in the form of twelve semi-structured interviews with individuals who have been residents of Sweden for more than six months, with a wide range of ages and an equal representation of the male and female gender. The empirical findings will be analysed based on the grounded theory where common themes based on similarities will be presented. Conclusion It was concluded that the attitudes towards personalised advertisement, privacy issues and its effect on buying behaviour depends on where the advertisement comes from as well as from where the individual is shopping. Furthermore, it was also found that although privacy concerns were raised it did not prevent individuals from continuing to purchase online, only from what sites the purchasing was conducted.