Innovation vs Privacy
Document Type Thesis
Advisor: Deborah Fain
Marketing
Abstract
Personalization and privacy can be thought of as two ends on a spectrum: they are inversely related. While it is known that consumers want personalization from the products they purchase, the services they buy, and the brands they choose to follow-- privacy is becoming increasingly important to consumers. Marketers continuously assess where that threshold between personalization and privacy exists and under what circumstances they can push the boundary. This analysis studies the relationship between personalization and privacy in the context of high technology and social media. In the survey distributed, respondents were segmented into one of five segments based on their relationship with innovation using the Technology Readiness Index 2.0. In the second half of the survey, respondents were asked to indicate their comfort level with a number of different situations regarding high technology or social media. After analyzing the results, it was found that there is an overwhelming discomfort regarding privacy across all consumer segments. These findings demonstrate that consumers’ attitudes regarding innovation and privacy are going unnoticed.