Effects of security warnings and instant gratification cues on attitudes toward mobile websites

In order to address the increased privacy and security concerns raised by mobile communications, designers of mobile applications and websites have come up with a variety of warnings and appeals. While some interstitials warn about potential risk to personal information due to an untrusted security certificate, others attempt to take users' minds away from privacy concerns by making tempting, time-sensitive offers. How effective are they? We conducted an online experiment (N = 220) to find out. Our data show that both these strategies raise red flags for users-appeals to instant gratification make users more leery of the site and warnings make them perceive greater threat to personal data. Yet, users tend to reveal more information about their social media accounts when warned about an insecure site. This is probably because users process these interstitials based on cognitive heuristics triggered by them. These findings hold important implications for the design of cues in mobile interfaces.