The results are clear: it's getting harder to gather personal data from consumers. The underlying
reason is consumers perceived privacy risk, which is defined as the consumers perception of risk
when marketers or companies attempt to collect, use, and distribute data or personal data about them
and their behaviour.
The study Willingness to Provide Personal Information Online: The Role of Perceived Privacy
Risk
shows that there's a strong and statistically significant correlation between perceived privacy
risk and the willingness to provide personal data.
But why are consumers perceived privacy risk rising? The evidence shows that consumers are
becoming increasingly aware of worldwide data brokerage business practices, and their harmful
effects.
Steve Kroft from CBS News shows in his article, The Data Brokers: Selling your personal
information
that the cause for consumers constantly increasing perceived privacy risk is that so
called data brokers are collecting, analyzing and packaging some of our most sensitive personal data
and selling it as a commodity - to each other, to advertisers, to other companies, and even to the
government. The following figure visualizes how consumer data flows in the worldwide system of
one of the biggest player in the US, Acxiom Corporation.