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Article Excerpt
This study examines the impact of parental influence on teens' attitude toward privacy protection. Survey data show that teens high in concept-oriented family communication tend to engage in discussion mediation, which, in turn, affects their level of privacy concern. In contrast, teens high in socio-oriented communication tend to have more family rules and surf the Internet with parents. Rulemaking mediation is not directly related to teens' level of privacy concern, while cosurfing mediation is related to their level of concern. This study also finds that parental mediation and teens' concern level explain their attitude toward privacy protection measures. Implications for policymakers and educators are discussed.
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With teens increasingly becoming an influential online retail demographic (Business Wire 2006; Greenspan 2004), e-marketers are targeting them through new interactive marketing platforms such as gamevertising, viral video, and social networking site (Chester and Montgomery 2007; Howard 2006). These marketing practices may open opportunities for communication, product learning, and e-commerce to teens; however, they also raise public concerns about online risks resulting from teen privacy loss (Donnerstein 2002; Lenhart 2005; Willard 2006).
Among potential online risks, privacy advocates have addressed financial risks stemming from e-marketers' attempts to collect personal information from teens (Schonberger 2005). The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) received 10,835 identity theft complaints in 2006 from teens aged eighteen and younger. This is an approximate 13 percent increase over the 9,595 complaints in 2004 (FTC 2007a) and accounts for about 5 percent of the 225,532 identity theft complaints in 2006. That same year, 1,498 Internet-related fraud complaints from teens aged nineteen and younger were filed with FTC, accounting for 2 percent of the 61,168 complaints in 2006 (FTC 2007b). Another online risk is the constant barrage of unwanted commercial e-mails caused by teens giving their private information to e-marketers (Grant 2006; Liau, Khoo, and Ang 2005).
In response to these online risks teens face, parents and privacy advocates have voiced concerns about teen privacy loss. The Pew Internet & American Life Project study discovered that 81 percent of parents believe that teens are not as careful as they should be with disclosing personal information online (Lenhart 2005). The Annenberg Public Policy Center study reported that 74 percent of parents worry that their child gives out personal information through Web sites or chat rooms (Turow and Nir 2000). In the same study, 96 percent of parents agreed that teens older than thirteen years should be required to obtain parental consent before disclosing their information online.
However, the current FTC rule under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) does not protect privacy rights of teens aged thirteen to seventeen years, although it regulates e-marketers' data collection on sites that target children younger than thirteen years. Consequently, privacy advocates have contended that the COPPA should be extended to include teens older than thirteen years (Aidman 2000). Given such growing concerns among parents and privacy advocates over teens' privacy, it is important to examine how teens aged thirteen years and older perceive e-marketers' information practices.
To date, few academic studies have addressed teens and online privacy-related issues. Studies have examined what factors explain teens' level of privacy concern and how their level of privacy concern has an impact on privacy coping behaviors (Grant 2006; Moscardelli and Divine 2007; Youn 2005). These studies do not, however, explore parental involvement in teen privacy issues and the influences on teens' motivation to safeguard privacy rights. Thus, this study investigates the process by which parental influence shapes teens' attitude toward the protection of privacy online. This study specifically attempts to answer the following questions: (1) What type of family communication patterns (FCPs) is related to parental mediation of privacy? (2) What type of parental mediation has a stronger association with teens' level of privacy concern and their attitude toward privacy protection? and (3) How is teens' privacy concern level associated with their attitude toward privacy protection?
To examine these questions, this study utilized the consumer socialization perspective as a conceptual framework. Research on consumer socialization has demonstrated that teens' understanding of consumption activities and persuasion is influenced by a variety of socialization agents such as parents, peers, schools, and the mass media (Carlson et al. 1994; Mangleburg and Bristol 1998; Mangleburg, Grewal, and Bristol 1997). Among these agents, this study focuses on the role of parental influence. Indeed, there is much anecdotal evidence showing that parental interaction is the most important tool for protecting teens' online safety (e.g., Privacy Rights Clearinghouse 2007), but few studies empirically examine the relationship among parental influence, teens' level of privacy concern, and their attitude toward privacy protection.
The findings of this study are of value for several reasons. They will provide deeper insight into the importance of parental influence on increasing teens' level of privacy concern and advance our knowledge in identifying teens' attitude toward privacy protection as a function of parental influence. More importantly, a detailed understanding of teens' attitude toward privacy protection will assist educators and policymakers in developing policies to help teens protect themselves from e-marketers' information practices and engage in safe online activities.
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Consumer Privacy and Teens' Vulnerability
Consumer privacy has various meanings for scholars; it is a context-specific and an ever-evolving concept. Yet, the literature illustrates the convergent view toward consumer privacy, which recognizes the importance of individuals' ability to control their personal information within the context of a marketing transaction (Goodwin 1991; Lee 2002; Milne and Rohm 2000; Nowak and Phelps 1995; Phelps, Nowak, and Ferrell 2000). Information control assumes that consumers are able to restrict the terms under which their personal information is collected, disseminated, accessed, and used by marketers (Culnan 1995, 2000; Goodwin 1991). Information control is desirable for multiple reasons, one of which is to reduce the number of intrusive marketing messages received. This relates to consumers' wishes to be left alone (Milne and Rohm 2000; Nowak and Phelps 1995). The view of consumer privacy as a control of personal information stems from the premise that personal information belongs to the consumer, namely, it is one's private property (Milne and Rohm 2000; Nowak and Phelps 1992, 1995).
As the growth of the Internet facilitates e-marketers in gathering a substantial amount of personal information, consumers have little control over what e-marketers know about them and how e-marketers collect and use their personal information. Scholars have identified the conditions under which consumers lose control of their personal information and, thus, have high levels of privacy concern. Nowak and Phelps (1992, 1995) argue that consumers' privacy concerns heighten when they are unaware that their personal information is collected and used by marketers and/or when their information is compromised beyond the original purpose without their awareness or permission. In addition, Sheehan and Hoy (2000) elaborate three more dimensions that underlie the degree of online privacy concern. The level of concern increases when consumers are asked to provide marketers with sensitive information (Phelps, D'Souza, and Nowak 2001), when consumers are contacted by unfamiliar companies that they do not trust (Milne and Rohm 2000), and when consumers perceive that the risks of information disclosure exceed the benefits (Milne and Gordon 1993; Phelps, Nowak, and Ferrell 2000).
Several studies show that teens are often exposed to potential privacy risks online. The Teen Internet Safety Study by Cox Communication in partnership with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) revealed that 71 percent of teens aged thirteen to seventeen years received messages from someone they do not know, and among them, 40 percent usually replied to and chatted with that person (Teenage Research Unlimited 2006). Forty-five percent of teens were asked to provide personal information to someone they do not know, 37 percent were not worried about someone using their personal information in ways they have not authorized, and 20 percent perceived it safe to disclose personal information on a public blog or networking site (Teenage Research Unlimited 2006). The Pew Internet Study showed that only 21 percent of teens online were concerned about mishaps involving privacy breaches in which their email, instant message, or text message would be shared with entities other than the recipient (Lenhart, Madden, and Hitlin 2005). These risks have given rise to much debate on measures to protect teens' online privacy by policymakers, consumer advocates, and parents. Such measures include government regulation, school-based education, and industry self-regulation, which will be discussed in turn.
Teens' Privacy Protection Measures
Regarding government regulation, Congress introduced the Children's Privacy Protection and Parental Empowerment Act in 1999. This act requires information brokers to prohibit the sale or purchase of personal information on children below the age of sixteen without parental consent (Tech Law Journal 1999). Congress also passed the Student Privacy Protection Act to safeguard the privacy of kindergarten to grade 12 students from companies that conduct market research in schools. This Act requires companies to seek parent's written permission before collecting personal information for marketing purposes from any student below the age of eighteen (Ruskin 2001).
In 2001, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) implemented the Children's Internet Protection Act to deal with minors' access to inappropriate content on school and library computers. To receive federal funding on technology, schools and libraries must install filtering or blocking technologies to shield minors from harmful materials and prevent the "unauthorized disclosure, use, and dissemination of personal information regarding minors" (FCC 2006). The FTC also enacted the CAN-SPAM Act in 2004 in an effort to eradicate deceptive unsolicited commercial e-mail and provide consumers with the right to ask spammers not to send future commercial e-mails (FTC 2004). To reduce unwanted contacts by strangers on the Internet, the U.S. House recently passed the legislation to restrict teens' access to social networking sites in schools and libraries (Romer 2006).
In concert with growing governmental regulations, consumer advocates and educators have called for implementing school-based education for privacy protection as part of media literacy programs (Brookshire...
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