How fair is the privacy policy of courier apps in China? A content analysis based on justice theory

Le résumé fourni par la source

The rapid proliferation of courier delivery applications (apps) has transformed consumer–business interactions, yet few studies have examined the fairness of privacy policies in these apps. Based on justice theory, this study develops a content analysis framework by integrating the latent Dirichlet allocation, analytic hierarchy process, and Knuth-Morris-Pratt algorithm to examine the content and structure of justice (i.e. procedural, interactional, and distributive justice) of the privacy policies of 29 top Chinese courier apps. The results show that: (1) the overall fairness of privacy policies in the courier-app industry is relatively low with a mean score of 68.29% and wide variation from 38.85% to 87.62%; (2) a notable structural gap emerges between existing industry privacy policies and the justice framework, particularly with respect to distributive justice. While procedural justice and interactional justice are comparatively well covered, information accessibility and the protection of sensitive data under distribution justice remains insufficiently; (3) comparisons across app categories indicate that postal, e-commerce, and comprehensive service apps generally exhibit higher levels of fairness than urban on-demand delivery and express courier apps. This study provides methodology and policy references for courier companies to formulate fair privacy policies and the government to enhance app privacy supervision.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.