Privacy Concerns Matter, Knowledge Does Not: Investigating Effects of Online Behavioral Advertising among Chinese and Dutch Adults

The present study aims to address (1) the extent to which privacy concerns and online behavioral advertising (OBA) knowledge as consumer characteristics create boundary conditions for the persuasiveness of OBA and (2) if their roles in OBA effects differ for Dutch and Chinese individuals. Results from an online experiment (N = 241) show that OBA is less effective for individuals with high privacy concerns than for individuals with low privacy concerns, while level of OBA knowledge does not influence the positive effects of OBA compared to non-OBA. OBA is also more effective for Dutch consumers than for Chinese consumers, which could be attributed to the finding that Chinese consumers have higher privacy concerns than Dutch consumers.