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Despite a decade since the inception of B2C e-commerce, the uncertainty of the online environment still makes many consumers reluctant to engage in online exchange relationships. Even if uncertainty has been widely touted as the primary barrier to online transactions, the literature has viewed uncertainty as a "background" mediator with insufficient conceptualization and measurement. To better understand the nature of uncertainty and mitigate its potentially harmful effects on B2C e-commerce adoption (especially for important purchases), this study draws upon and extends the principal-agent perspective to identify and propose a set of four antecedents of perceived uncertainty in online buyer-seller relationships-perceived information asymmetry, fears of seller opportunism, information privacy concerns, and information security concerns-which are drawn from the agency problems of adverse selection (hidden …