The stimulus–organism–response (S-O-R) model explains the impact of an environmental stimulus and emotional response on individuals’ behavior. Prior research has employed the S-O-R model to examine individuals’ impulsive consumption behavior. Accordingly, various online environmental stimuli influence customers’ cognitive and affective organism processes, consequently formulating the user’s behavioral responses ^[1][34]. In an online shopping context, the stimulus corresponds to triggers or cues in the online setting that influences consumers’ affective experiences (e.g., the appearance of the e-retail stores). Organism represents the inward state of customers’ emotions and cognition when interacting with the stimuli, whereas response manifests customers’ impulsive shopping behavior as reactions toward the stimulus and their internal evaluation, such as purchase intentions ^[2][35]. Impulsive buying is defined as unintentional and abrupt purchase behavior, often triggered by the shopping environment. According to Kyrios et al. ^[3][36], impulsive buying is a less pronounced manifestation of compulsive buying wherein the former represents the initial stage and the latter represents the extreme boundary of the same behavior ^[4][37]. 

Perceived benefits in the online shopping context represent the combination of advantages that meet a user’s expectation ^[5][38] or a consumer’s belief about the extent to which they will become affluent from purchasing online with a particular website ^[6][39]. Previous studies by Forsythe et al. ^[7][40] highlighted that convenience, product selection, ease of shopping, and enjoyment are essential perceived benefits customers obtain from online shopping ^[7][8][40,41]. In addition, big data analytics has enabled customers to acquire relevant information about the products of interest and quickly purchase them through the support of improved search engines and recommendation systems without any constraints ^[9][2]. Online shopping provides unending possibilities for efficient goal-directed information search, price comparisons, and convenient purchasing of a wide variety of products ^[10][42]. Moreover, e-commerce websites integrate features designed to enhance consumer-to-consumer and customers-to-brand communication and provide timely support and information resources concerning products of interest. Those advantages result in instant gratification or relief from negative feelings, which, in turn, significantly affect consumers’ attitudes toward online shopping ^[11][43] and online shopping behavior ^[12][13][44,45]. Likewise, some anecdotal evidence indicates e-commerce incorporates features that have heightened online compulsive buying ^[14][15][16][46,47,48].

According to the APA Dictionary of Psychology, the notion of interpersonal relationships “encompasses social interactions, connections, or affiliations, especially ones that are socially and emotionally significant, between two or more people”. The capability to attach to and constitute ongoing intimate relationships with other people is a distinctive attribute of the human experience. However, whether Internet use enhances or wears down interpersonal relationships has been the subject of considerable controversies. Proponents of the Internet contended its possibilities for making new friends, maintaining interpersonal relations ^[17][18][19][49,50,51], and gaining social capital ^[20][21][52,53], while the skeptics oppose this optimistic viewpoint ^[22][23][54,55]. These inconclusive findings may partly stem from examining the Internet as a single facet ^[24][25][56,57], the changes to the Internet, and how people use the Internet ^[26][27][58,59]. Internet shopping provides an essential social support system for the relatively introverted or those who have few friends ^[18][50]. Such concealed social support enables users to satisfy their needs through purchasing ^[28][60]. According to attachment theory, a deficit of interpersonal relationships may jeopardize an individual’s sense of security, triggering problematic behaviors ^[29][61]. More specifically, inferior interpersonal relationships were a detrimental consequence of compulsive buying ^[30][62], whereas heightened interpersonal conflict was more relevant to abnormal spending behavior and a preoccupation that denotes compulsive buying ^[31][63].

To date, there is still no agreed-upon definition of the term that entirely covers the issue of data ownership. The uncertainty and absence of clear regulations relating to data ownership ^[32][64] mean that the question of data ownership (i.e., who should own the data) remains without a conclusive answer. Data ownership is considered to be “the possession of complete control over the data and its rights including, but not limited to access, creation, generation, modification, analysis, use, sell, or deletion of the data, in addition to the right to grant rights over the data to others” ^[33][65]. Companies have leveraged the ability to collect, store, disseminate, and manipulate massive amounts of consumer information to remain competitive in a progressively knowledge-based society ^[34][66]. The rising amount of data is undoubtedly provoking the issue of data ownership. However, there has been very little academic inquiry into consumer data ownership and management issues relating to the data that companies routinely collect for marketing-related purposes. The dearth of transparency regarding data collection introduces more complexity when trying to figure out what happens to consumers’ data—i.e., how it is stored, processed, or disseminated to other parties. This increasing tendency underscores the necessity to obtain control over the manipulation and accessibility of these data. Existing literature from a juridical perspective suggested that data ownership is predominantly associated with the privacy of the individual ^[35][67]. According to Jagadish et al. ^[36][68], privacy is one aspect of data ownership wherein the former, within the firm–consumers relationship reflects “the extent to which a consumer is aware of and can control the collection, storage, and use of personal information by a firm” ^[37][69]. More specifically, the involvement of different entities who have authorized access to such data, often without prior consent from the data subject ^[38][70], accrues more complexity to the concept of data ownership ^[39][71].

According to Rogers’ theory of the adoption of innovation ^[40][72], awareness is the first step in a five-step procedure for decision making, which includes awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, and adoption. In the first step, an individual is exposed to an idea or innovation but lacks information about that idea/innovation and is less likely to seek more information about the idea/innovation. People must first be aware of the ideas and determine whether they are worth adopting before proceeding further. 

Problematic internet shopping refers to “…a tendency of excessive, compulsive, and problematic shopping behavior via the Internet that results in consequences associated with economic, social, and emotional problems” ^[41][15]. The growth of the e-commerce market and excessive buying/shopping may place an individual at an increased susceptibility of perpetual behaviors crossing some thresholds and becoming problematic. According to Koufaris ^[42][73], greater anonymity, unhindered access to the international marketplace, and a pronounced likelihood of hiding purchases from their tight-knit connections can stimulate a buyer to make purchases repeatedly, resulting in unplanned shopping. Furthermore, enticing sales, attractive in-store arrangements, and convenient payment methods could constitute a key trigger for problematic internet shopping ^[14][16][43][46,48,74]. In a similar vein, over-exposure to online advertisements and embedded marketing strategies have been reported to elevate the risk of problematic internet shopping ^[44][16]. Therefore, it is intuitively convincing to speculate that traditional problematic shopping can migrate into the online environment and result in problematic internet shopping, which might eventually deteriorate affected an individual’s social life and economic and psychological condition ^[45][41][10,15]. From the sociological perspective, the subject of addiction is not the material good but the interaction between an affected individual and their context-specific addiction subject ^[46][75]. Therefore, seamless access to all goods and services online without constraints manifests a fertile ground for developing problematic internet shopping ^[47][14][18,46].