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Privacy Fears Deterring Almost Half of American Households From Online Shopping (bbc.com)

Posted by msmash on from the concern-over-privacy dept.

Many Americans are growing increasingly concerned about privacy and security. According to a survey, almost half of American households with at least one Internet user have been deterred from online activity recently. The online activity includes doing online transactions, banking, and posting things on social media, said the survey of 41,000 households by a Department of Commerce agency. BBC reports: When respondents were asked what concerned them the most about online privacy and security, 63% said identity theft. The respondents, who were allowed to give multiple answers, also cited credit card or banking fraud (45%), data collection by online services (23%), loss of control over personal data (22%) and data collection by the government (18%); 13% also said they were concerned about threats to personal safety. The data suggested 19% of US online households had been affected by an online security breach in the previous year. The NTIA said this represented about 19 million American households.

12 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. RL shops can spy on you too by NotInHere · · Score: 2, Interesting

    They can simply do open WLANs which the phones log in to or detect you when you don't pay with cash. And one thing almost nobody hides when they go to a shop: their face. Camera face tracking technology is almost free these days, the shops can monitor you almost as good as online shops can.

  2. This isn't bad news... by n3tkUt · · Score: 2

    People are getting fed up, good, they should be. Some are horrible with passwords and general security, that's in their control, and is their own fault. But, all of the other concerns are the fault of retailers, social media sites, and government spy programs. Those things need to change, and people leaving the affected services is a step in the right direction. Also, I couldn't help but smirk at "19% of US online households had been affected by an online security breach in the previous year..." That number is closer to 100%. If you're not hyper-vigilant about online security, you're being sniffed and snooped by the government, by Microsoft, by Google, by Facebook, by Amazon, etc.. People can't even look up the weather without their browser being raped.

  3. Why worry about credit cards? by heypete · · Score: 2

    I've never understood why anyone worries about their credit card information when shopping online: it's literally the least-valuable information that I possess, insofar as its compromise will affect me.

    I'm not liable for any fraudulent charges made with my card, and reporting mis-use is the work of a few moments (unless the bank notices it first and notifies me, in which case its even less work for me). A replacement card will be in my mailbox in a few days.

    Is it a minor hassle to update the card number on file with various merchants I do business with? Certainly, and I'd rather such a situation if possible, but it's a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things.

    Other information -- social security numbers, for example -- are much more valuable to criminals (which is dumb: there really should be some better way of identifying someone), and it's a good thing such information is only rarely needed and asked for. In general, SSNs can't be changed and it's a huge pain to recover from identity theft, but a stolen credit card? That's a minor inconvenience, at worst.

    1. Re:Why worry about credit cards? by heypete · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You need to convince the bank that any transactions between its being compromised or stolen and your notifying them were not in fact yours. Good luck with that. I would not notice a fraudulent charge until the next monthly statement

      I'm not sure where you live, but in the US it's quite easy: most banks allow you to simply mark one or more particular charges as fraudulent using their online banking website. Otherwise, you can report the card as lost/stolen using the website or by calling them. One time, ten years ago, they sent me a form I had to sign and mail back (at their expense) to attest that the charge was fraudulent. Took me about 30 seconds. The one other time I've reported it since then, it was all online with no paperwork. The one time the bank caught it before I did, no paperwork was necessary: they called me, described the suspicious transaction, I confirmed it was fraudulent, and they handled it from there.

      There's never been any adversarial questioning or anything from the bank, it's simply routine.

      But you sound as if your cards are often compromised, lost or stolen, so it's all the more suprising if your bank cancels the fraudulant charges at the drop of a hat. You must have such a reputation with them that I wonder why they don't cancel your contract instead.

      It's happened to me three times in 15 years, never through any fault of my own. I'd hardly consider that "often" or somehow deserving of a "reputation". Even if it was somehow considered excessive, I find it hard to believe that a bank would drop a long-time client simply because they were frequently the victim of crime.

      In each case, it's been quite obvious that the charges were unusual and fraudulent: As an example, when my card was compromised one time I lived in Arizona and I regularly made various routine charges (e.g. groceries, gas, food, etc.). It didn't really make sense that my card was used to buy $300 worth of gasoline at a gas station in Florida 20 minutes after I bought my regular groceries in Arizona, so the bank flagged the transaction and called me. Another time it was used to buy household appliances in some distant state I'd never visited to be delivered to an address I had no connection with whatsoever.

      Either way, dealing with the aftermath of the fraudulent credit card usage was only the most minor inconvenience. I don't understand why people get so worked up about such things: I'd be more concerned with my name, address, and other account details getting leaked since those can't be changed as easily (if at all).

    2. Re:Why worry about credit cards? by Anna+Merikin · · Score: 2

      I'm not liable for any fraudulent charges made with my card, and reporting mis-use is the work of a few moments (unless the bank notices it first and notifies me, in which case its even less work for me). A replacement card will be in my mailbox in a few days.

      Is it a minor hassle to update the card number on file with various merchants I do business with? Certainly, and I'd rather such a situation if possible, but it's a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things.

      That's the theory set forth by the banks; as someone whose cc info was compromised, it's not that simple. The "refund" on my debit card was conditional on the fraudster not contesting the removal of charges. Although the corrected balance appeared on my statement, the funds could be removed were the fraudster to appeal within 90 days. If I were to spend the funds on things like rent or food, I might get hit with overdraft charges if the appeal were made.

      So, not only did I need a new debit card account, with all that entails, I needed to find out which merchant defrauded me, and the funds in question were frozen (practically speaking, unavailable) for months.

      That was eight years ago; to this day, I have not (and will not) purchase anything from eBay (from whom the card info probably was sold) and there has been no repeat of fraud.

      Buyer beware: eBay is not secure like an integrated retailer. Your cc info is probably more valuable than the meager profit the seller may realize on your "bargain."

    3. Re:Why worry about credit cards? by heypete · · Score: 2

      That's why I essentially never use debit cards and advocate the use of credit cards: if I contest a charge on a debit card, I'm contesting whether or not I should get my own money back and, as you say, the money may be unavailable during the investigation.

      With credit cards, I'm contesting if I owe the bank money and I'm under no obligation to pay until the investigation and any related processes are ongoing.

      In regards to eBay, the merchants never get your credit card information. Virtually all transactions go through PayPal, which has its own buyer protection options above and beyond what your credit card offers. Things might have been different eight years ago.

    4. Re:Why worry about credit cards? by jetkust · · Score: 2

      Convince them? In my experience, if someone fraudulently uses you're card, they call you. If you do anything out of the ordinary, they call you. I've had several calls from my bank having to verify that I was the one making the charges to unblock my card. Never the other way around. (They tend to understand concepts like if you use a card in the USA and minutes later it's used in Russia something isn't quite right, because nobody can possibly run that fast)

  4. Re:I like how they survey a very small subset... by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Whenever I search for something on Amazon, it stalks me all around the web. I searched for the word "tarp" once (someone asked me how much they usually cost) and for several weeks afterwards, every web site on the planet was showing me ads for tarps- from Amazon and from other shady tarp-sellers. It's just creepy. What if you're at work and your laptop keeps displaying ads for stuff like this? I don't really like firing up IE just to find crap on Amazon. That's just too high of a price to pay.

    Web browsers have come the modern equivalent of the telescreens in Orwell's 1984- but Orwell never realized how popular telescreens would be. ("Big Brother gave me this new telescreen and it's huge, 2 mm thinner, comes with a front side camera, and I get an exercise instructor to monitor my fitness!")

  5. Re:I like how they survey a very small subset... by bjwest · · Score: 2

    Adblock Plus and NoScript will fix your adverstalking problems.

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    --- Keep the choice with the user..
  6. Re:I like how they survey a very small subset... by bjwest · · Score: 2

    Both Adblocks, AFAIK, only block adds. NoScript, or uScript will help with the tracking cookies and scripts. I've also started using Ghostery which is designed specifically for tracking.

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    --- Keep the choice with the user..
  7. Re:I like how they survey a very small subset... by hey! · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Err... you do know how statistical sampling works, don't you? If a bin holds a thousand widgets, and 50 of the first 100 randomly selected widgets are defective, you can by 95% certain that the number of defective widgets in the bin is between 450 and 550.

    41,000 households is not a small sample. The big question is to what degree the sampling methods are biased rather than random. But unless the sampling method is astonishingly and probably obviously bad, the inescapable conclusion is that a lot of households are sufficiently worried enough about privacy to curb their online shopping.

    On the other hand -- half of all households who do shop online is still a lot of households. Plenty to support a lot of online retailers.

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    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  8. Re:I like how they survey a very small subset... by Plus1Entropy · · Score: 2

    you can by 95% certain that the number of defective widgets in the bin is between 450 and 550

    I'm not a statistician by any means, but isn't that assuming a normal distribution?

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    Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.