Areas of privacy in Facebook - expectations and value

Privacy issues surrounding the use of social media sites have been apparent over the past ten years. Use of such sites, particularly Facebook, has been increasing and recently business organizations have begun using Facebook as a means of connecting with potential customers or clients. Using a factorial design previously introduced by Martin (2010), this paper presents an empirical study of perceived privacy violations and their seriousness to examine factors that might influence the expectations of privacy on Facebook. Results of the study suggest that the more important Facebook is to users the more likely they are to perceive privacy violations and the more likely those violations are serious. Furthermore, how information is used is more important than the way this information is accessed.