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The era of smart applications (hereafter referred to as smart-apps) and the Internet of Things (IoT) brings with it tensions among communications and economic considerations and personal information privacy concerns (Rath & Kumar, 2021; Fox et al., 2021; Acquisti et al., 2015; Dinev, 2014; Teubner & Flath, 2019; FTC, 2014; Carpenter et al., 2019; Chan & Saqib, 2021). Fundamental to these tensions is, first, the mechanisms and methods used to harvest personal data. Second, how much of one’s personal information is too-much when disclosed, shared, collected, or mined in the economic and communications transactions. As Teubner and Flath (2019) point out, ‘the boundaries between the private and economic spheres have started to erode’ (pp. 213). Software applications designed to function on mobile phones, tablets, wearables, and IoT user-interfaces incrementally mandate the exchange of personal information. Thus, serving as fodder for the community-building and/or trust-enhancement initiatives that leverage the success of their economic models (Einav et al., 2015; Proserpio et al., 2016; Stutzman & Kramer-Duffield, 2010). These software applications are collectively termed smart-apps. Smart-apps have shifted the way personal information is collected and used by companies, hence, raising critical information privacy concerns (Dinev & Hart, 2006; Krasnova et al., 2012; Goldfard & Tucker, 2012; Lutz et al., 2018).
One consequence of this is that the related issues of privacy-consent mechanisms employed within smart-apps and consequent impacts on end-users’ information privacy are increasingly becoming contentious in present day information society. Advances in the architecture, structure, and complexity of smart-apps as well as enhancements in the scope, breadth, and ubiquity-of-usages has significantly changed. Hence the need to examine whether consumers are harmed or better served by current privacy-consenting mechanisms inherent in these apps. This notwithstanding, it is worth noting that Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is changing control of organizational computing. The mobile generation relies heavily on BYOD and more employees in international organizations are using their personal smartphones for work purposes (Ameen et al., 2021). The 186 billion BYOD market in 2019 (Onanuga, 2020) is projected to grow to 367 billion in 2022 (Georgiev, 2021) and 430 billion in 2025 (Onanuga, 2020). BYOD is adopted by 69% of organizations (BYOD, 2020). BYOD market analysis indicates that 95% of organizations allow personal devices in some way in the workplace, 78% of organizations in the US had BYOD activities since 2018, 67% of employees use personal devices at work, BYOD generates $350 of value each year per employee, a BYOD-carrying employee works an extra two hours, and 87% of businesses are dependent on their employee’s ability to access mobile business apps from their smartphone (Georgiev, 2021).