Awareness
is defined as the knowledge or perception of privacy problems and consequences. This concept of awareness is different from the awareness that Malhotra et al. (2004) investigate as a part of their Internet Users‟ Information Privacy Concerns scale. Awareness in their case is defined as a measure of importance of transparency of privacy practices of companies. In this study awareness is similar to the technology awareness (TA) concept that Dinev and Hu (2007) develop based on Rogers (1995) innovation diffusion process. They explain that TA is an individuals‟ “raised consciousness of an interest in knowing about technological issues and strategies to deal with them” (Dinev and Hu 2007, p 391). In the context of OSN this is appropriate since knowledge of privacy challenges and/or protection strategies while using OSN is an important indicator of privacy disposition.
There aren‟t many studies analyzing awareness as a variable and how it affects privacy or other privacy risk variables. It is interesting to note that awareness programs are often recommended to increase knowledge of the privacy problem in order to initiate people into protecting themselves (i.e. Chellappa 2002, Acquisti 2004). Some research has touched on the awareness variable as part of a larger study and how it relates to disclosure practices and privacy concern. For example, there are many studies that investigate compliance of companies to the Fair Information Practices, of which one aspect is awareness, and how this affects consumers (i.e. Schwaig et al. 2006). Other research investigates disclosure. For example Milne and Rohm (2000) found that name removal preferences were affected by knowledge and awareness of name removal mechanisms (for direct mail, e-mail, and telephone), and Culnan (1995) found that consumers who are aware of name removal procedures have a lower privacy concern. Huang et al. (2004) found that awareness (knowledge) is a factor affecting perception of threat of