Understanding information disclosure behaviour in Australian facebook users

The advent of social networking websites presents further opportunities for criminals to obtain information for use in identity theft, cyber-stalking, and worse activities. This paper presents exploratory research investigating why users of social networking websites willingly disclose personal info...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Newk-Fon Hey Tow, William, Dell, Peter, Venable, John
Other Authors: Annett Mills
Format: Conference Paper
Published: Australasian Conference on Information Systems 2008
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/30952
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author Newk-Fon Hey Tow, William
Dell, Peter
Venable, John
author2 Annett Mills
author_facet Annett Mills
Newk-Fon Hey Tow, William
Dell, Peter
Venable, John
author_sort Newk-Fon Hey Tow, William
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description The advent of social networking websites presents further opportunities for criminals to obtain information for use in identity theft, cyber-stalking, and worse activities. This paper presents exploratory research investigating why users of social networking websites willingly disclose personal information and what sorts of information they provide (or not). The study employed an ethnographic approach of participation in the online community and interviews of community members, combined with a quantitative survey. The findings show that users are often simply not aware of the issues or feel that the risk to them personally is very low. The paper recommends that government agencies or social networking websites themselves conduct campaigns to inform the public of these issues and that social networking websites consider removing some facilities. The study was conducted in an Australian context and focussed on the popular Facebook website.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T08:21:20Z
format Conference Paper
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T08:21:20Z
publishDate 2008
publisher Australasian Conference on Information Systems
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-309522022-12-07T06:50:48Z Understanding information disclosure behaviour in Australian facebook users Newk-Fon Hey Tow, William Dell, Peter Venable, John Annett Mills Sid Huff identity theft information disclosure privacy Social networking websites Facebook The advent of social networking websites presents further opportunities for criminals to obtain information for use in identity theft, cyber-stalking, and worse activities. This paper presents exploratory research investigating why users of social networking websites willingly disclose personal information and what sorts of information they provide (or not). The study employed an ethnographic approach of participation in the online community and interviews of community members, combined with a quantitative survey. The findings show that users are often simply not aware of the issues or feel that the risk to them personally is very low. The paper recommends that government agencies or social networking websites themselves conduct campaigns to inform the public of these issues and that social networking websites consider removing some facilities. The study was conducted in an Australian context and focussed on the popular Facebook website. 2008 Conference Paper http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/30952 Australasian Conference on Information Systems fulltext
spellingShingle identity theft
information disclosure
privacy
Social networking websites
Facebook
Newk-Fon Hey Tow, William
Dell, Peter
Venable, John
Understanding information disclosure behaviour in Australian facebook users
title Understanding information disclosure behaviour in Australian facebook users
title_full Understanding information disclosure behaviour in Australian facebook users
title_fullStr Understanding information disclosure behaviour in Australian facebook users
title_full_unstemmed Understanding information disclosure behaviour in Australian facebook users
title_short Understanding information disclosure behaviour in Australian facebook users
title_sort understanding information disclosure behaviour in australian facebook users
topic identity theft
information disclosure
privacy
Social networking websites
Facebook
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/30952