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Summary: Online privacy and culture: evidence from Japan
By Yohko Orito, Kiyoshi Murata, Yasunori Fukuta, Steve McRobb
and Andrew A. Adams
Abstract
Almost every shopping website now posts its privacy policy online. Although the recognition
of the right to privacy is inevitably affected by socio-cultural circumstances, there has been
very little examination of the recognition of online privacy policies from a cross-cultural
perspective. We analysed the results of a survey that investigated young Japanese people's
awareness of online privacy policies as the first step in considering socio-cultural factors in
this area. Through the analysis and discussions of the survey results, we considered the
implications for Japanese society and businesses committed to the protection of online
privacy.
1 Introduction
There is an online privacy policy posted on almost every commercial and government website
in today's Internet society. There have been numerous studies of online privacy policies,
some of which have pointed out interesting contradictions concerning the effectiveness of
these policies. For instance, Pollach [2007] suggests that online privacy policies have been
drafted with the threat of privacy litigation in mind, rather than as a commitment to the
appropriate handling of data. This is not surprising from the viewpoint of the Japanese socio-
cultural circumstances surrounding information privacy. However, because information and
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