US Consumers Clueless About Online Tracking

Arashtamere writes "A study on consumer perceptions about online privacy, undertaken by the Samuelson Clinic at the University of California and the Annenberg Public Policy Center, found that the average American consumer is largely unaware that every move they make online can be, and often is, tracked by online marketers and advertising networks. Those surveyed showed little knowledge on the extent to which online tracking is happening or how the information obtained can be used. More than half of those surveyed — about 55 percent — falsely assumed that a company's privacy polices prohibited it from sharing their addresses and purchases with affiliated companies. Nearly four out of 10 online shoppers falsely believed that a company's privacy policy prohibits it from using information to analyze an individuals' activities online. And a similar number assumed that an online privacy policy meant that a company they're doing business with wouldn't collect data on their online activities and combine it with other information to create a behavioral profile."

Comments

Re:US consumers are clueless about technology

[dosius]

So what's new? Americans are clueless about everything.

-uso.

Re:Disclaimers aside...

[DerekLyons]

Joe Consumer actually doesn't really give a shit one way or the other.

This is what your run-of-the-mill Slashbot fails to grasp.

What the run-of-the-mill Slashbot fails to grasp is that Joe Sixpack has, correctly, deduced that Slashbots are raving paranoid psychotics who've cried wolf so long and so loud that it is now impossible to determine when they are describing real threats and when they are describing their hallucinations.
 
 

Most people just don't care. And any attempt at educating family and friends (or the masses) goes in one ear and out the other.

Or, just _possibly_ the family and friends have different priorities, or have come to a conclusion other than the Slashbot privacy uber alles dogma.