This section reviews evidence for gender differences in articulated online privacy
concerns related to the Social Web. The next section examines privacy-related
differences in strategies for using the Social Web. The Social Web Gendered
Privacy Model argues that women will be more concerned than men about online
privacy, but this hypothesis is not clearly supported by existing evidence. A survey
of 5,139 Dutch students found no gender differences in general privacy concerns,
although it is not clear whether the responses were specific to Internet-related issues
(Oomen and Leenes 2008). The study sample was self-selected, with a low response
rate to e-mail invitations and other announcements (2.31%) and a low completion
rate for the questionnaire (25%), which may account for the unusual results.
Alternatively, students in the The Netherlands may be an unusual case. In contrast,
an early study of online marketing contexts (i.e., not the Social Web) in the US
found that women were more concerned about privacy than men but men were
more likely to take steps to actively protect their privacy (Sheehan 1999). A later
study of US children found females were more concerned about online privacy than
males: girls provided inaccurate information to protect themselves whereas boys
tended not to register for new websites instead (Youn and Hall 2008). The remainder
of this section deals with the specific case of SNSs.