JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 58(5):710–722, 2007 With the rapid diffusion of the Internet, researchers, pol- icy makers, and users have raised concerns about on- line privacy, although few studies have integrated as- pects of usage with psychological and attitudinal aspects of privacy. This study develops a model involv- ing gender, generalized self-efficacy, psychological need for privacy, Internet use experience, Internet use fluency, and beliefs in privacy rights as potential influences on online privacy concerns. Survey responses from 413 college students were analyzed by bivariate correla- tions, hierarchical regression, and structural equation modeling. Regression results showed that beliefs in pri- vacy rights and a psychological need for privacy were the main influences on online privacy concerns. The proposed structural model was not well supported by the data, but a revised model, linking self-efficacy with psychological need for privacy and indicating indirect influences of Internet experience and fluency on online privacy concerns about privacy through beliefs in pri- vacy rights, was supported by the data. Introduction Privacy and security problems associated with digital com- munication and network technologies have been a major con- cern among Internet users during the past decade (Federal Trade Commission, 2000; Metzger & Docter, 2003; UCLA Center for Communication Policy, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004). Metzger (2004) noted FBI and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reports on extensive instances of identity theft and online fraud, and FTC findings that nearly all commercial Web sites collect some type of personal information while less than 20% provided a complete privacy policy (FTC, 2000). Past research has identified a number of demographic and user-experience factors such as gender, Internet use experience, and Web expertise to be related to user concerns about online privacy (Dommeyer & Gross, 2003; Graeff & Harmon, 2002; Milne & Rohm, 2000; O’Neil, 2001; Phelps, Nowak, & Ferrel, 2000; Sheehan, 1999). However, the influ- ence of social-psychological factors, such as people’s beliefs and personality, upon concerns about online privacy is unclear. The present study is designed to examine, in addi- tion to the demographic and experience factors identified in previous research, the influence of psychological need for privacy, generalized self-efficacy, and beliefs in privacy rights on user concerns about online privacy. Concerns About Privacy Despite its central position in Western philosophy and an array of social and behavioral sciences (cf. DeCew, 1997; Turkington & Allen, 1999), there is very little agreement on the definition of privacy. A primary source of this disagree- ment is the fact that the term “privacy” is used loosely by lay persons, scholars, and legal practitioners in different social contexts referring to different things. The concept of privacy has been defined by some as matters that are personal and secretive (Stephen, 1967), the right to be left alone (Cooley, 1880; as cited in Turkington & Allen, 1999; Warren & Brandeis, 1890), the degree of accessibility to an individual (Bok, 1984), dependent on the context of use (Viseu, Clement, & Aspinall, 2004), or one’s ability to control infor- mation about oneself (Fried, 1970; Westin, 1967). One seminal definition of privacy deals with the control of personal information. Jourard (1966) viewed privacy as an outcome of people withholding certain knowledge about their present experiences from others. Bennett (1967) de- fined privacy as the selective control of information. Westin (1967) defined privacy as “the right of the individual to decide what information about himself should be communi- cated to others and under what condition” (p. 10). Central to this view of privacy are three key elements: the autonomy of decision making, information about one’s self, and a process of communicating this information. Predicting User Concerns About Online Privacy Mike Z. Yao Department of English and Communication, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong. E-mail: mike.yao@cityu.edu.hk Ronald E. Rice and Kier Wallis Department of Communication, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106–4020. E-mail: rrice@comm.ucsb.edu, kwallis@umail.ucsb.edu Received February 16, 2006; revised April 23, 2006; accepted April 23, 2006 © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. • Published online 1 February 2007 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/asi.20530