Compliance to the fair information practices: How are the Fortune 500 handling online privacy disclosures?

Privacy concerns and practices, especially those dealing with the acquisition and use of consumer personal information, are at the forefront of global business and social issues associated with the information age. Our research examined the privacy policies of the Fortune 500 to assess the substance and content of their stated information practices and the degree to which they adhered to the fair information practices (FIP).From the observations, we developed a Privacy Policy Assessment Matrix that can be used to evaluate how well a firm addresses information privacy concerns. The matrix was used to analyze the Fortune 500 firms to understand their privacy maturity. The results provided practical and theoretical implications for addressing information privacy issues.