Does Culture Affect Post-Adoption Privacy Concerns of Mobile Cloud Computing App Users? Insights from the US, the UK, and India

Abstract

Mobile cloud computing apps have become the dominant type of mobile app, providing users with many benefits but also causing privacy concerns related to data being uploaded to the cloud. Since many mobile cloud computing apps have billions of current users around the world, the role of culture in privacy after adoption is pertinent to researchers, users, and developers. This study investigates how culture affects privacy considerations of mobile cloud app users in the post-adoption phase and how it shapes their response to developers’ institutional privacy assurances such as privacy policies and ISO 27018 certification. Based on surveys of current mobile cloud computing app users across three countries: the US (n = 1,045), the UK (n = 183), and India (n = 1,189), we find that users from different cultures differ in their considerations of privacy and in perceptions of institutional privacy assurance. The results show that cultural dimensions moderate the effects of value and risk of transferring to the cloud on continued use. We also find counterintuitive results for the direction in which uncertainty avoidance and power distance shape users’ reactions to institutional privacy assurances. Our findings suggest that MCC app developers need to be consider users’ cultures when designing and communicating their institutional privacy assurances.