Balancing User Privacy Concerns in the Adoption of Location-Based Services: An Empirical Analysis across Pull-Based and Push-Based Applications

Abstract

Location-Based Services (LBS) bring unprecedented mobility and personalization value to nomadic individuals and hence carry great commercial potential. However, the commercial potential of LBS is obscured by the user’s concerns for privacy whereby the LBS provider can misuse the confidential personal information of users and in extreme circumstances place an individual in danger or seriously jeopardize his or her social life or finances. Therefore, we study the adoption of LBS through a privacy calculus lens. Privacy calculus argues that individuals, when requested to provide personal information to corporations, perform a cost-benefit analysis to assess the outcomes they would face in return for the information, and respond accordingly. We study both pull-based and push-based LBS to have a comprehensive view of LBS adoption. The results of the study reveal that individual’s privacy concerns influence their intention to adopt directly in case of push-based LBS and indirectly in case of pull-based services. The implications for theory and practice are discussed.