TY - JOUR

T1 - The effects of targeted political advertising on user privacy concerns and digital product acceptance

T2 - A preference-based approach

AU - Baum, Katharina

AU - Abramova, Olga

AU - Meißner, Stefan

AU - Krasnova, Hanna

N1 - Funding Information: Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. This work has been partially funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) under grant no. 16DII131 and grant no. 16DII116 (“Deutsches Internet-Institut”). Publisher Copyright: © 2023, Institute of Applied Informatics at University of Leipzig.

PY - 2023/12

Y1 - 2023/12

N2 - Online businesses are increasingly relying on targeted advertisements as a revenue stream, which might lead to privacy concerns and hinder product adoption. Therefore, it is crucial for online companies to understand which types of targeted advertisements consumers will accept. In recent years, users have been increasingly targeted by political advertisements, which has caused adverse reactions in media and society. Nonetheless, few studies experimentally investigate user privacy concerns and their role in acceptance decisions in response to targeted political advertisements. To fill this gap, we explore the magnitude of privacy concerns towards targeted political ads compared to “traditional” targeting in the product context. Surprisingly, we find no notable differences in privacy concerns between these data use purposes. In the next step, user preferences over ad types are elicited with the help of a discrete choice experiment in the mobile app adoption context. Our findings suggest that while targeted political advertising is somewhat less desirable than targeted product advertising, the odds of choosing an app are statistically insignificant between two data use purposes. Together, these results contribute to a better understanding of users’ privacy concerns and preferences in the context of targeted political advertising online.

AB - Online businesses are increasingly relying on targeted advertisements as a revenue stream, which might lead to privacy concerns and hinder product adoption. Therefore, it is crucial for online companies to understand which types of targeted advertisements consumers will accept. In recent years, users have been increasingly targeted by political advertisements, which has caused adverse reactions in media and society. Nonetheless, few studies experimentally investigate user privacy concerns and their role in acceptance decisions in response to targeted political advertisements. To fill this gap, we explore the magnitude of privacy concerns towards targeted political ads compared to “traditional” targeting in the product context. Surprisingly, we find no notable differences in privacy concerns between these data use purposes. In the next step, user preferences over ad types are elicited with the help of a discrete choice experiment in the mobile app adoption context. Our findings suggest that while targeted political advertising is somewhat less desirable than targeted product advertising, the odds of choosing an app are statistically insignificant between two data use purposes. Together, these results contribute to a better understanding of users’ privacy concerns and preferences in the context of targeted political advertising online.

KW - Advertisement

KW - DCE

KW - Online privacy

KW - Targeting

KW - Business informatics

KW - Informatics

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85169566531&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s12525-023-00656-1

DO - 10.1007/s12525-023-00656-1

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85169566531

VL - 33

JO - Electronic Markets

JF - Electronic Markets

SN - 1019-6781

IS - 1

M1 - 46

ER -