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Rewards backfire in online commerce

The offer of a reward may help police track down a suspect or lead to the return of a lost wedding ring, but it won’t get Internet users to give out personal information, a University of Florida study shows. People are actually less likely to type their name, address and other personal information into a Web site for a reward because they tend to regard the offer as suspicious, according to the study, which appears in the 2002 Advances in Consumer Research.