Interaction Effects of Contextual Cues on Privacy Concerns: The Case of Android Applications

The prevalence of mobile applications poses a new challenge in privacy protection. To address privacy concerns, prior studies have identified the direct effects of contextual cues but few have revealed their interaction effects. In reality, contextual cues do not appear in isolation, existence of multiple contextual cues introduces an extra complexity in a user´s privacy decision-making. This study aims to address the research question of how contextual cues interactively shape privacy concerns. This study focuses on the Android application downloading context. Three contextual cues (i.e., App popularity, permission sensitivity, permission explanation) are identified. Our experimental study postulates both the direct effect and interaction effects of contextual cues on privacy concerns. This study contributes to literature with a better understanding of the combinatory effects of multiple contextual cues.