Exploring information privacy regulation, risks, trust, and behavior

•The model considers privacy regulation and both individuals’ perceptions and behavior.•Perceived regulatory protection directly and indirectly—through trust—influences privacy risks concerns.•Privacy risks concerns influence both protection behavior and regulatory preferences.•Perceived rewards have a direct effect on both protection behavior and regulatory preferences.•Results suggest that regulatory protections should be provided proactively.

Over the past few decades, governments worldwide have grappled with their approaches to regulating issues associated with information privacy. However, research on individuals’ perceptions of regulatory protections and the relationships between those perceptions and behavioral choices has been sparse.In this study, we develop and test a model that considers relationships between an antecedent variable (regulatory knowledge); a mediating structure that encompasses perceived privacy regulatory protection, trust, and privacy risk concerns; two outcome variables (protection behavior and regulatory preferences); and direct and moderating effects of perceived rewards. Using a sample of young UK consumers that we collected in cooperation with the European Commission, we find strong support for our overall model and for most of our hypotheses.We discuss implications for research, managerial practice, and regulation.