Date of Award

5-1-2024

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

Unal Tatar

Committee Members

Luis Luna-Reyes, DeeDee Bennett Gayle, David Turetsky

Keywords

Case Study Methodology, GDPR, Online Behavioral Advertising, Privacy Concerns, Privacy Regulation, Process Tracing

Subject Categories

Library and Information Science

Abstract

Legislators worldwide are enacting or proposing privacy legislation to address online privacy concerns, with the most consequential global law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), taking effect as recently as 2018. Scholars have long argued for or against various regulatory strategies (legal, self-regulation, and privacy self-management) as appropriate policy interventions, often through an economic lens. At the same time, research in the Information Systems (IS) domain contributed significantly towards understanding and explaining privacy-related issues in information and communication technologies, with privacy concerns emerging as a vital construct. Drawing on these theoretical foundations and the emerging online behavioral advertising (OBA) research, this study advances the central thesis: the ultimate goal of privacy legislation is to mitigate privacy concerns by enhancing individuals’ ability to control their personal information with low effort; these effects occur through interrelationships across levels of information privacy. This study proposes a privacy framework, Regulation of Information Privacy [ROIP], that begins with regulation as an outcome of privacy concerns and elaborates on legal regulation as the trigger to other forms of regulation that lead to information privacy solutions. I conduct a within-case process tracing analysis of the implementation of privacy legislation on OBA in the European Economic Area (EEA) that evaluates the framework. Known as interest-based, personalized, or targeted advertising, OBA is a burgeoning field of research. It is the practice of tailoring advertisements to individuals based on their past behaviors, interests, and habits. Using qualitative empirical tests to examine fingerprints left in the record of diagnostic evidence from multiple sources within the OBA regulatory ecosystem, I follow the activities of government, industry, organizational, and individual actors as they play their respective roles in societal information privacy concerns. This study demonstrates that no single regulatory strategy delivers a perfect solution to information privacy challenges. Instead, in concert, they enhance outcomes concerning online privacy challenges. Moreover, this study indicates that while legislation improves transparency in OBA privacy practices, much more work remains to enable individuals to have actual control over their personal information.

Download

Share

COinS