Why companies change privacy policies: A principal-agent perspective Chipidza, W, Leidner, Dorothy and Burleson, D 2016, Why companies change privacy policies: A principal-agent perspective, in Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, p,, pp. 4849-4858, doi: 10.1109/HICSS.2016.601. Attached Files Name Description MIMEType Size Downloads Title Why companies change privacy policies: A principal-agent perspective Author(s) Chipidza, W Leidner, Dorothy Burleson, D Title of proceedings Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences Publication date 2016 Start page 4849 End page 4858 Total pages 10 Publisher p Keyword(s) Science & Technology Technology Computer Science, Information Systems Computer Science, Theory & Methods Engineering, Electrical & Electronic Computer Science Engineering INFORMATION Summary Companies often update their privacy policies, but it is unclear whether these updates strengthen or weaken user privacy. Using a principal-agent theoretical lens, we analyze over 200 changes to privacy policies of five prominent Internet companies over a period of fifteen years. We find that over time, privacy policy updates are more likely to weaken, rather than strengthen, user privacy on the Internet. Moreover, analysis of pilot data suggests that companies are more likely to update their privacy policies if they experience negative revenue growth over successive financial reporting periods. Since our results show that changes in privacy policies benefit companies at the expense of user privacy, we conclude that the principal-agent problem exists in the information privacy arena. ISBN 9780769556703 ISSN 1530-1605 DOI 10.1109/HICSS.2016.601 Indigenous content off HERDC Research category E1.1 Full written paper - refereed Persistent URL http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30165629 Document type: Conference Paper Collections: Faculty of Business and Law Department of Information Systems and Business Analytics Related Links Link Description Connect to published version Go to link with your DU access privileges   Connect to Elements publication management system Go to link with your DU access privileges     Unless expressly stated otherwise, the copyright for items in DRO is owned by the author, with all rights reserved. Versions Version Filter Type Tue, 29 Mar 2022, 11:05:51 EST Tue, 29 Mar 2022, 11:06:24 EST Tue, 29 Mar 2022, 18:42:29 EST Tue, 29 Mar 2022, 19:04:29 EST Fri, 29 Apr 2022, 09:13:10 EST Fri, 29 Apr 2022, 09:48:49 EST Filtered Full Citation counts:   Cited 1 times in TR Web of Science Cited 1 times in Scopus Search Google Scholar Access Statistics: 5 Abstract Views, 0 File Downloads  -  Detailed Statistics Created: Tue, 29 Mar 2022, 11:06:24 EST