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1. Introduction
The impressive deployment of the social web over the last few decades has undeniably changed the ways in which the internet is experienced by users. Users are urged to reveal a remarkable amount of personal information in order to join in social media. In addition to this prerequisite step for registration, it is observed that the users publish an increasing amount of personal data in order to receive some benefits, such as social approval. This vigorous trend of personal data disclosure has raised many concerns regarding users’ awareness of the potential risks and consequences that this disclosure can trigger.
Many researchers embark on examining the level of privacy awareness that users have while using social media sites. Results indicate that users are not always completely aware of risks involved when they participate in such environments (Pitkänen and Tuunainen, 2012; Acquisti and Gross, 2006; Debatin et al., 2009; Malandrino et al., 2012). The literature implies that the way of presenting a privacy policy to users is a key factor that is capable of affecting users’ privacy awareness level (Iannella and Finden, 2010; Bergmann, 2009). However, despite the fact that a privacy policy includes all the necessary information regarding data collection and use, so as a user to be privacy-aware, most users avoid reading it (Pitkänen and Tuunainen, 2012; Acquisti and Gross, 2006; Talib et al., 2014). One of the main factors that lead to the low reading level is the fact that privacy policies are usually lengthy and verbose (Furnell and Phippen, 2012).
Some early efforts attempt to address the above defective situation using visualization techniques that aim to convert conventional privacy policies into more attractive visual representations (Angulo et al., 2012; Raskin, 2010; Cranor et al., 2006; Ghazinour et al., 2009; Kelley et al., 2009; De Jong et al., 2012; Reeder et al., 2008; Cherivirala et al., 2016). Despite the fact that these techniques appear to be quite promising, the relevant empirical research is still limited. Additionally, although relevant studies focus on the development of efficient ways for the representation of privacy policies, they fail to examine whether these techniques actually influence users’ privacy awareness level. Instead, they mainly tend to compare the...