Acceptance of Personalised Services and Privacy Disclosure Decisions: Results from a Representative Survey of Internet Users in Spain

As interaction with digital providers has become a widespread practice, users are increasingly aware of the trade-off between anonymity and personalised and advantageous services. This contribution intends to ascertain whether a growing consciousness about how digital providers use personal data is having an impact in disclosure behaviour. It uses the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and a representative survey of 1500 Internet users in Spain to test different hypotheses on how the knowledge of users about service providers usage of personal data influences privacy attitudes, intentions and disclosure behaviour. The analysis concludes that: (i) there is a direct link between privacy attitude and privacy behaviour in addition to the standard path mediated through intentions; (ii) as users become more tech savvy their behaviour regarding privacy is also enhanced except for the case of social networks, where knowledgeable individuals are less concerned; (iii) users are no longer naïve on the effects of exchanging their data for an improved provision of digital services. As a general policy result the paper argues for increasing users’ awareness and knowledge as a means to encourage control of personal data.