Value Congruence and Trust Online: Their Impact on Privacy and Pr ...

marketed to in the future. Corporations also collect data on existing and prospective customers. For example, supermarkets keep track of shoppers’ purchases and their buying habits. In order to target specific groups, marketing companies buy and sell customer information to build profiles of people who are likely to purchase or use their products.

Identity thieves gather information on potential victims for illegal scams. Identity theft is one of the fastest-growing crimes in the U.S., oftentimes leading to disastrous consequences. Sullivan (2003) found that 43% of all complaints received by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are related to identity theft, by far the largest category. In 2002, the FTC logged nearly 162,000 consumer complaints about identity theft, more than five times the 31,000 reported in 2000 (Borrus, 2003). Victims of identity theft can have their credit ruined, forcing them to spend hundreds of hours filling out paperwork and significant amounts of money trying to get their identity back. Some victims have been repeatedly arrested for crimes committed by others using their identity, and have lost jobs for the criminal record stemming from the theft (Sullivan, 2003). Online job posting company Monster.com admitted that identity thieves posted false jobs on websites like theirs to get information from people’s job applications in order to steal their identity (CNN.com, 2003). The concern with identity theft can prevent Internet users from sharing personal information, especially if they do not have a high degree of trust in the organization collecting the information.

Constant et al. (1994) made a distinction between the information that people feel like they own and information that they feel is in the public domain. Individuals are more likely to share information for which they perceive ownership. They are also more willing to disclose this type of information for personal benefits.

Laudon (1996) argued that individuals ought to have the right to own information about themselves and should be able to decide when and