Showing or Hiding? The Impact of Visibility of General Conditions of Use on Retargeted Ad Intrusiveness and Perceived Ethicality of Mobile Apps

Although it is legally required to have consumers’ consent to collect and use their personal data for retargeting practices, managers ignore how to design and communicate about privacy policies to drive subsequent acceptance of personalized advertising. Hence, this research examines the impact of the visibility of general conditions of use (GCU) on consumers’ perception of retargeting practices (perceived ethicality and ad intrusiveness) through the lens of attribution theory. Using seven empirical studies, the findings support that having highly visible GCU decreases consumers’ attribution of the responsibility for receiving retargeted advertising to the company. The thereby increased attribution to customers’ own responsibility, in turn, reduces perceived intrusiveness of in-app advertising and increases the perceived ethicality of the company. This relationship is moderated by their privacy concerns and the reminder of GCU acceptance at a different point during the mobile app usage. Results contribute to the online interactive marketing literature by investigating consumers’ subsequent acceptance of data usage and their ethical perception depending on GCU design and configurations.