Consumers' privacy concerns not backed by their actions

[tao]

A large majority of people say they are concerned about their online privacy, but this is not reflected in their actions according to a new study.

 

The survey from Blue Fountain Media reveals that 90 percent of respondents are very concerned about their internet privacy and 48 percent wish 'more was being done about it'.

 

Yet despite this 60 percent of those polled happily download apps without reading terms and conditions, and close to 20 percent still download apps even when they have read the terms and don't like them. A third of those polled say they would delete an app that tracks their whereabouts, but 50 percent say whether they would do so depends how much they like the app. Interestingly less than 10 percent believe an app that tracks their location is actually useful to them.

 

When it comes to who is trusted with personal data, levels of confidence are very low. 21 percent trust online banking or financial institutions the most and 18 percent feel safe on government sites. However, only six percent trust email providers like AOL, Yahoo or Gmail, four percent trust social networking sites like Facebook and a mere three percent trust search engines like Google or Bing.

 

"The survey shows that while people are concerned about how privacy and their personal information are being handled on the internet, they really don't feel empowered to do anything about it," says Brian Byer, vice president content and commerce practice lead at Blue Fountain Media. "The irony is, almost two-thirds (63 percent) don't think companies having their personal information leads to a better, more personalized, on-line experience at all; the chief reason companies like Facebook say they want the information in the first place."

 

When asked about GDPR, 52 percent say they aren't aware of the new regulations but are happy to hear about them. Only 23 percent of respondents are familiar with the new regulations being enacted and are looking forward to seeing them, and 11 percent are familiar with the new regulations but think they will be a waste of time.

 

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[steven36]

This post is very true,  but sad to say it's nothing new people sold there soul out  to data collection in the name of free services years ago, this has been going on every since i been on the internet and it just gets worse with age . Many countries in the EU there government has data retention laws and are collecting data themselves so they are a bunch of hypocrites .

 

So even if the big tech stopped doing it , you will still be being spied on by you're government Sad to say the outcome of things, most of the time are predicable as a b rated movie that the pilot has been used a 1000 times before. Do they expect the whole world to change overnight just because they signed a piece of paper ? People don't like change and in the USA if they cant afford being sued by the EU  they just block the EU from accessing the website, next thing you know the EU will need a vpn just to use any free services after they get tired of being sued  . It's all going  to blow up in there face. 

 

I thought that the  hacking epidemic would start the USA websites to start blocking other countries but it started out with EU Data laws so i was not 100% right but it has started  . Just a little karma  getting paid back for the websites in the EU that block us because of our copyright laws. Back years ago some sites put blocks in place because the USA was bad about shutting them down. Now  the EU itself is blocking and shutting them down. They went to having some of the best internet laws to haveing much worse laws than the USA at lest the government  don't block sites or try to take sites down that allow free speech.  The EU has a website dedicated to shutting down free speech sites now it gives people a list of bad forums and stuff they can visit and be bad  is all it does.

 

I knew when the EU proposed these new laws,  it would  be a disaster it was totally predicable . The people have no say in what there government does anymore Hollywood uses them as puppets to do there bidding and they want to act like they accomplishing something by suing big tech, when in reality they just want to line there pockets full of money, it's not helping no one out, it's just going to hurt them when they get blocked. 

 

They will have to  pay some website money so they can access websites with no ads and things is were it's headed. I remember not too long ago 90% of warez was on paid hosters on the forums and blogs and if you used p2p it was not very safe it was full of exploits.  They was only very few of us that was nice enough to upload anything to a free hoster like Mediafire  and if it was not for the USA shutting down sites like Megaupload  and Hotfile,  pirates would of never switched to free hosters and getting paid trough ads instead. Every cloud has a silver lining and one mans lost is another mans gain.