Transformations  in
Business & Economics

STUDY ON THE IMPLICATIONS OF PERSONAL DATA EXPOSURE ON THE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS
Cristian-Bogdan Onete, Vanesa Madalina Vargas, Sandra Diana Chita

ABSTRACT. Nowadays, personal data is becoming both increasingly relevant and extensively shared over the internet. The purpose of the study is to highlight the privacy concept and its application on sharing personal data in social media. This study also examines the connection between the profile of the consumer and the willingness to make public information about themselves. Exploratory research of in-depth content analysis has been used in this study to gain an in-depth understanding of why people choose to post private data online. For accomplishing this purpose, secondary data has been collected from the well-known social media platform, Facebook. Individual willingness to share personal data is evaluated along with the spectrum of situations where such data is requested. Our findings show three types of user categories that are further described as the exposers, the balancers and the restrictioners. Each of these types has different exposure of their personal data on the social media platform.

KEYWORDS:  social media, personal data, privacy.

JEL classification:  L81, L82, P23, P46.