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Privacy in E-Commerce: Development of Reporting Standards, Disclosure and Assurance Services in an Unregulated Market

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Author Info

  • Shyam Sunder
  • Michael Maier
  • Karim Jamal

Abstract

Government regulation of financial reporting by publicly listed firms, coupled with a punitive regime for violation of generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), has been in place in the United States for seven decades. Whether this regime is effective or useful is an open question, especially in the absence of data on the behavior of unregulated economies. Privacy disclosure in e-commerce is essentially an unregulated environment with some parallels to financial disclosure. A study of privacy standards, disclosures practices and demand for audits can help accountants and security regulators project the consequences of a competitive regime sans regulation for accounting standards, disclosure and audit practices, and the effectiveness of opt-out practices of 100 high-traffic e-commerce Web sites. We observe four diverse sets of privacy standards (TRUSTe, BBB Online, WebTrust, and PWC Privacy) competing in this market, attracting clienteles of their own as reflected in privacy policies and the disclosure of such policies. With a few exceptions, actual disclosure and opt-out practices correspond reasonably well to stated policies in e-commerce. There is little evidence that the prevailing competitive regime induces a race to the bottom with respect to privacy standards and disclosures. We explore the implications of these results for the consequences of a competitive regime for regulation of financial reporting.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Yale School of Management in its series Yale School of Management Working Papers with number ysm359.

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Date of creation: 01 May 2002
Date of revision: 01 Dec 2002
Handle: RePEc:ysm:somwrk:ysm359

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Web page: http://icf.som.yale.edu/
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Keywords: e-commerce; Privacy; Regulatory Competition; Financial Reporting Standards;

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Cited by:
  1. Il-Horn Hann & Kai-Lung Hui & Yee-Lin Lai & S.Y.T. Lee & I.P.L. PNG, 2006. "Who gets spammed?," Natural Field Experiments 00271, The Field Experiments Website.
  2. Jamal, Karim & Maier, Michael & Sunder, Shyam, 2003. "Enforced Standards Versus Evolution by General Acceptance," Working paper 215, Regulation2point0.
  3. Karim Jamal & Shyam Sunder, 2011. "Unregulated Markets for Audit Services," The Japanese Accounting Review, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University, vol. 1, pages 1-16, December.

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