Research On Consumers Personal Information Security And Its Perception In The Process Of Online Shopping

With the rapid development of internet technology and content networking technology, online shopping rises sharply along with the increases of its trading volume year by year.It has become an important part of our economy. Compared with trading shopping, the online shopping has the unique advantages of not being restricted by time and space.Bringing the convenient shopping experiences to the majority of internet users, online shopping has become the most popular way of shopping.However, with great convenience to the majority of internet users, online shopping has lead to the leakage of personal information in the cyber space. As a result, information security faces the unprecedented threat, and information security issues become more and more serious.In the early 1820s, American economist Frank H.Knight had pointed out that "information is also a kind of major commodity". In the online shopping environment, the commodity characteristic of personal information has also made the consumers’ personal information becoming increasingly important to the businessmen. Personal information is even viewed as a commodity to be treated. Some businesses or offenders attacked and gave away personal information,which damaged the interests of consumers. How to prevent the leakage of personal information has become an important project in the internet field. The degree of personal information security perceptions of the internet users as the stakeholders has become an important factor. This factor influences the internet users whether they will take measures to protect their personal information security or not.This thesis divides the online shopping process into different links and discusses the problems of information security in different links from the perspective of the online shopping process. Meanwhile, this thesis analyzes the situation of the consumers’perceptions of personal information security, and puts forward some suggestions aiming against the existing problems. The thesis includes the following parts.Firstly, this thesis summarizes the concepts of information security and the perception of personal information security and the information insecurity problems existing in the current online shopping process on the basis of the relevant literature.Secondly, according to the research subject of this thesis, based on the results of previous studies, this thesis divides the online shopping process into five parts:the registration and login link, searching merchandise link, the orders link, the payment link, the commodity distribution link. On the basis of every online shopping link, this part then analyzes consumers’ personal information security problems existing in shopping progress and briefly analyzes the reasons of these problems. This part set up the theoretical foundation for further understanding of consumers’ perception of information security.Thirdly, this part is about empirical research. This thesis analyzes the phenomenon that the consumers whether perceive the threat of personal information security in current online shopping process mainly through questionnaires, interviews and other research methods.Finally, aiming against the problems of personal information security in current online shopping process, this thesis puts forward some suggestions such as raising information security perception and protecting personal information security from the point of view of consumers.