Trust on Personalised Electronic Commerce: A Spanish Case

Abstract The privacy and value of users' personal data is closely related to the risk and trust perceived by the users on the Internet about personalised advertising. This paper analyses the level of concern of Internet users in Spain for personalised advertising using datasets from surveys carried out by the Spanish National Institute of Statistics in the years 2020 and 2023. These datasets are composed of socio-demographic variables as well as other variables such as Internet security tools. It could be seen in the results that the most important variables that influence the level of concern with advertising and personalised e-commerce are those related to their personal condition, such as gender, online education, marital and employment status. Also, security features facilitate the use of the Internet when risk perceived by individuals is high and have a greater influence on those individuals who have a higher perception of risk. Finally, the pandemic has increased the concern of individuals regarding the processing of their personal data and personalised publicity. Furthermore, there is an inverse relationship between trust on the Internet and the development of excessive concern about receiving personalised advertising, the positive impact of having suffered from fraud and having high levels of concern about the use of personal data. The importance of the state regarding legal frameworks and the education and knowledge of users in relation to these issues is also highlight.