The Impact of Privacy Concerns and Perceived Vulnerability to Risks on Users Privacy Protection Behaviors on SNS: A Structural Equation Model

This research paper investigates Saudi users' awareness levels about privacy policies in Social Networking Sites (SNSs), their privacy concerns and their privacy protection measures. For this purpose, a research model that consists of five main constructs namely information privacy concern, awareness level of privacy policies of social networking sites, perceived vulnerability to privacy risks, perceived response efficacy, and privacy protecting behavior was developed. An online survey questionnaire was used to collect responses from a sample of (108) Saudi SNSs users. The study found that Saudi users of social networking sites are concerned about their information privacy, but they do not have enough awareness of the importance of privacy protecting behaviors to safeguard their privacy online. The research results also showed that there is a lack of awareness of privacy policies of Social networking sites among Saudi users. Testing hypothesis results using the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) showed that information privacy concern positively affects privacy protection behaviors in SNSs and perceived vulnerability to privacy risks positively affects information privacy concern.