“Doing privacy”: exploring the nature of consumer privacy and consumers’ privacy management practices

The consumer privacy debate is dominated by discussions about consumers’ concerns about information privacy. However, understanding consumer privacy concerns solely in terms of information privacy, although valuable, is limited because it fails to incorporate other relevant aspects of privacy found outside the domain of consumption literature and may not adequately account for the range of concerns consumers encounter as they navigate through contemporary consumer society. Two further concerns are that practitioners and researchers, rather than consumers themselves, primarily frame the current understanding of consumer privacy, and there is a lack of consistency in defining and measuring the construct. The literature review also highlighted the need to broaden existing knowledge of the range of privacy management practices consumers engage in as well as to explore the discrepancies in empirical evidence concerning consumers’ actual use of these practices. Given these gaps in the existing literature, this study endeavours to explore the nature of consumer privacy and to uncover the range of practices (if any) consumers engage in to achieve their desired levels of privacy as they manoeuvre through an environment characterised by changing social norms, rapid technological advances and social interactivity.

To address these exploratory research objectives, depth interviews using the photo-elicitation technique were conducted with 23 consumers (13 women and 10 men) aged between 19 and 60 who were interested in the topic of privacy. The interpretive analysis reveals that privacy is a highly socio-culturally embedded concept, where the meaning consumers ascribe to privacy—sovereignty over one’s personal domain—is a reflection of changes in the socio-cultural environment. More specifically, consumers’ desires for privacy are shaped by the dialectical tension arising from a greater degree of personalisation in many aspects of life and two unintended consequences of this personalisation: feelings of impersonalisation and fuzzy roles. This tension drives consumers to actively seek privacy through the use of several cognitive and behavioural management practices. Using warfare tactics as a metaphor, these privacy management practices have been labelled: withdraw, defend, neutralise, feint, attack, perception management, and reconcile.

This study contributes to existing literature by expanding upon the current narrow conceptualisation of consumer privacy and offering a broader understanding of the concept from the consumer’s perspective. It also presents a comprehensive typology of the range of organisational practices that engender consumer privacy concerns. This study provides support for and expands upon current knowledge of consumers’ privacy management practices. In uncovering the practices consumers actively engage in to “do privacy”, this study calls into question the “privacy paradox” and dispels the assumption that consumers are passive players in the marketplace who submissively tolerate and readily accept privacy invasions. In articulating these findings, this study offers a broad socio-cultural framework in which consumers’ privacy concerns can be better comprehended. It is hoped that this study provides a foundation for managing consumer privacy concerns so that improved outcomes can be attained for all.