1.1 Research Background
Due to the fast growing of the social networking sites, users share a huge amount of personal information and data from the site. When the site provides more and more personal information, it also increases information misuse and identity theft on other privacy issues. Privacy groups list several online risk behaviors as being harassed by unknown persons, tracking, and received a lot of junk mail, etc. Internet users feel that they are safe behind their computer, but in fact, there is no privacy (Nissenbaum, 2009).
Information provided by users could be mined and stored for forthcoming reference.
Lacking of privacy concern for the user, the information could potentially be used by fated employers or the government for judgment of character (Young et al., 2013).
A social networking site has such a vast number of users, and thus to protect the privacy of personal information is facing many challenges. Such as users generally feel that the risks of information sharing. To meet these challenges, social networks offer a number of mechanisms to protect the privacy of users' personal information, studies show that Internet users have found a general lack of concern for the privacy mechanism (Torres, 2012).
Social networking site's privacy settings scattered at different places and too complex, the need to simplify the site's privacy settings to provide a unified interface, and allows users to have more control their personal files or information. On the other hand, social networking sites have done many mechanisms to protect users' privacy and also well structure on the site; there still some users feel incomplete privacy protection.
Users are afraid about the misusing of personal information and the disclosing their personal information, but with lack of correlation background or lack of consideration on using the social network sites; the user might provide personal details on social networking sites. There is a gap between privacy concerns and actual privacy settings for the system. It has a "privacy paradox" situation (Trepte et al., 2011). Research and analysis related to social networking sites, the use of the social networking site Facebook has more than 4,000 students who at most a small part of the user to change the original default privacy settings (Stutzman et al., 2013). greater than 20,000 MySpace privacy settings, simply 27% are set to private to see (Thelwall et al., 2012).
However, some studies show that privacy concerns would affect the user to make changes privacy settings (Walrave et al., 2012). User does not change privacy setting mechanism, part of poor website design created by the privacy interface (Livingstone et al., 2011).
From past research on the social networking sites, privacy is not difficult to see the users expressed great concern for Internet privacy. Users doubt privacy commitment in social networks. User questioned the privacy mechanism of social networking sites, whether the privacy policies have the same as description, giving the user control for privacy, but also to provide them complete protection.
1.2 Research Motivation
With the fast growing of the social networking site, previous research most only explores preliminary behavior of users in social network sites. For example, online users use social sites‟ reasons and privacy concerns in a few information fields (Collins et al., 2012). However, the lack of social networking sites can affect user information privacy concerns and the site structural assurance, or different types of user information
privacy concerns whether there are differences in the literature. In this study, another object is to explore the social networking site's privacy mechanism. In addition to general privacy policy guarantees and third-party certification in social networks, a social networking site also allows users to change the privacy settings. User can determine the level of personal information disclosure. Privacy setting mechanism is unlike an ordinary website. A social network developed privacy mechanism, whether privacy mechanism can increase user confidence in social networks. It will be the purpose of this study. This study explores the reasons behind the formation of trust in social networking sites. Although, past literature has been studied trust in information privacy concerns or other effects of the antecedent for trust (Hong et al., 2013).
Nevertheless, the formation of trust lacks integration the information privacy concerns and other factors in that literature. Past studies explore information privacy concerns in e-commerce. It must have the network of trading under the online shopping environment (Brandimarte et al., 2013). However, a social networking site does not involve two-party transactions in the situation. Users trust social networking site, whether he has influenced by privacy concerns. It will be explored. This study explores the user's information privacy concerns. It will affect user's satisfaction and intention of sharing information in social networks. There are also exploring the social networking site's privacy mechanisms, and other factors influence satisfaction. Whether, the user can generate more trust. Exploring users have unusual views for information privacy concerns in different social networking groups. The preference of widespread users will be predicted by Lead User Method. The differences between lead users and mass users towards the social networking site are infrequently discussed. The difference between the Partial Least Square (PLS) and the DEMATEL based Network Process (DNP) are scarcely discussed.
1.3 Research Objectives
Based on the background and motivations mentioned above, this study aims to investigate privacy concerns, structural assurance, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness whether it influences users‟ trust and satisfaction in social networking sites.
The purposes of the research stated as below respectively. First of all, users have different social network groups on the website, whether they have different personal privacy concerns, including gender, age, educational level and occupation. Second, users feel about privacy concerns, whether it influences users‟ satisfaction and trust in social networking sites. Whether it influences users continued the intention of sharing information in social networking sites in the future. Third, whether social networks‟
privacy mechanism can increase users‟ satisfaction and trust, including privacy settings, privacy policy statements, and third-party certification. Fourth, figure out the vital factors which will influence the acceptance of SNS by using PLS, DEMATEL and DNP methodology. Fifth, measure and analyze the preference of lead users and mass users.
Sixth, measure and analyze the preference of SNS users. At last, predict the preference of mass users by lead users.
1.4 Research Procedure
As of the research, the author will first set the object and the region of the research.
At the second step, this research will do literature review to help to set up the research framework. The fourth step will use the research framework to set up the hypothesis and design for the questionnaire. After designing the questionnaire, the research we search for the expert help by using modified Delphi to verify whether the research framework makes sense or not. With the expert help, the research can issue the mass user
questionnaire and expert questionnaire to calculate the path coefficient by using PLS, using DEMTEL to build up the casual relationship between every dimension, and then DNP method will be used to figure out the weight when the user selecting the social network site. The entire research procedure will show in Figure 1-1.
Figure1-1 Research Procedure
Note. This Study
1.5 Research Contribution and Limitation
The four expected main contributions of this research are: (1)Probing into the question that whether different social groups would influence users‟ privacy concerns to share personal information; (2) Probing into the effect of privacy concerns (collection, control and awareness) to users‟ satisfaction and trust on using social networking sites are our targets; (3) Probing into the effect of privacy mechanism (privacy settings, privacy policy statements, and third-party certification) to users‟ satisfaction and trust
on using social networking sites are our targets; and (4)The suggestions and recommendation will be made as operators and development teams‟ reference based on the result of the present research.
However, the limitation of this research will be the amount of present experts and end users due to the limited number of attainable Taiwanese experts and end users who could be gotten into contact in the related fields. The foreign experts, lead users and mass users couldn‟t be investigated in this research. Only the experts and users in northern Taiwan could be investigated in this research.
1.6 Research Framework
The rest of this research is organized as follows. In chapter 1, introduction will be explained the research background, motivations and objectives. In chapter 2, literature will be reviewed on social networks, definition private paradox, trust and satisfaction for SNS. In chapter 3, research methods will be shown research framework, the definition of the variables measured way, and describes the design of a questionnaire study and process, and which tools to use for data analysis. In chapter 4, hypothesis development and data analysis and results will be shown data analysis process and results. Finally, according to the findings from this research, conclusions and recommendations will be presented in chapter 5.
Review the background and derive the criteria by literature review. Elicit the users‟
requirements by the modified Delphi method. The lead users‟ preference will be demonstrated by the DNP method. The mass users‟ preference will be demonstrated by the PLS method. The difference between lead users and mass users will be compared.