Handle with care: How online social network providers’ privacy policies impact users’ information sharing behavior

•Online social networks that rely on secondary data use face a challenging trade-off.•Providers need to evaluate consequences of their privacy policies’ contents.•We integrate conflicting interests of providers and users of online social networks.•Privacy policies need to be reconceptualized beyond the e-commerce domain.•Privacy risks transfer the effects of a privacy policy’s contents on user behavior.

Privacy policies determine online social network providers’ options to monetize user data. However, these statements also intrude on users’ privacy and, thus, might reduce their willingness to disclose personal information, which in turn limits the data available for monetization. Given these conflicting interests, we conducted an experimental survey to investigate the relationship between privacy policies and users’ reactions. We show that users’ privacy risk perceptions mediate the effect that changes in policies’ monetization options have on users’ willingness to disclose information. Our findings emphasize privacy policies as a delicate managerial concept for companies relying on data monetization.