The effects of cookie notices on perceived privacy and trust in e-commerce

Abstract

Website cookies have become an indispensable part of today’s e-commerce due to the high benefits they provide to companies. However, to leverage their full potential, a multitude of legal framework conditions must be taken into account. A phenomenon that has emerged from this context are cookie notices which can be found on the majority of today’s e-commerce websites. Such notices are primarily implemented because they are seen as a legal necessity and not due to the expectation of any interrelated benefits. However, as consumers tend to evaluate whether they intend to purchase from a specific online shop in the first few seconds of a website visit, it cannot be ruled out that this evaluation is influenced by a cookie notice. Therefore, the aim of this research is to investigate whether the most commonly found versions of cookie notices (pop-up and cookie bar) have an influence on perceived privacy and trust. The following hypotheses were subsequently tested by the means of an online experiment: in a realistically designed shopping scenario, where a simple shopping task had to be completed in a fictitious online shop, participants were each exposed to one of two cookie notice versions or no cookie notice at all. Afterwards all participants provided their responses to an online survey which allowed for the measurement of the influence on perceived privacy and e-trust. The results were differing: Despite most hypotheses were to be rejected, we arrived at a recommendation to operators of e-commerce websites to implement pop-up cookie notices.