The privacy and security perceptions of social media and e-commerce users: Turkey – USA comparison

Being started to use of the "internet" by means of ARPANET Project among some Universities have been followed by developments such as the use of the service of world wide web (web) and smart phone technologies. Along with these developments the use of internet has increasingly come until today. Social networks and social media applications are the leading areas of usage of the internet which is becoming one of the most important parts of the daily life of the world population. Beside we see that social networks and online shopping sites are being used frequently for commercial purposes. All these developments provide many facilities and innovations in our daily life as well as bring some problems along with it. At the outset of these problems are the collection, processing and usage of the personal information - which we shared in the social networks and online shopping sites - by the governments, organizations, companies or the 3rd parties. This situation puts forward the reality of our personal information and data are unable to be protected sufficiently and the privacy and security of those are under threat. And it brings to mind the question of how internet users display behaviours against this threat. In this framework the aim of the research is the assessment, analyse and reporting of the privacy and security perceptions of social media and online shopping site users in terms of Turkey and the United States of America (USA) Comparison in the very important age of the privacy of the personal information and data belong to internet users to be protected. After examination of concepts and subjects like Information Privacy and Security, Social Networks, E-Commerce and Online Privacy and Security the Research aims at studying and evaluating the awareness and concern levels, behaviour types (control, precaution etc.) and differences of social media and online shopping site users in the context of privacy and security. Furthermore the findings obtained as a result of the study will be compared with the users in the USA and differences and similarities will be revealed. After the evaluation of all results of the study limitations of the Research will be determined and recommendations and suggestions will be developed for future researches.