Consumers' Privacy Concerns Not Backed By Their Actions (betanews.com)

Ian Barker, writing for BetaNews: 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.

Comments

D'oh

[NettiWelho]

Yet despite this 60 percent of those polled happily download apps without reading terms and conditions,

Yeah I can't afford to hire a lawyer for 5-9 hours every time I install an app

Re:D'oh

[dgatwood]

Even without a lawyer, the cost of maintaining your privacy is too high these days. Suppose it takes you an hour to read all of the various privacy policies for Facebook in several different places. That's over 2 billion hours spent, just for one app, both when you install it and, potentially, every time they update the privacy policy. That would translate to an economic cost (if you assume U.S. minimum wage) of about $15.5 billion worldwide. Multiply that times the average number of apps that people install plus the average number of websites that people use.

Then, on top of that cost, you have to assume that the least reputable businesses won't actually follow their privacy policy, or will deliberately carve out exceptions that don't sound bad until you see how they use them. If you assume that everyone is behaving ethically, then privacy policies aren't needed, and if you assume that everyone is behaving unethically, then privacy policies do no good.

It doesn't take much effort, then, to understand why the only way to fix this is through laws that require a certain minimum set of privacy rights for every app and website that does business in your country. It's the only way to make it practical to protect your privacy in any meaningful way. That way, as soon as one person notices something wrong, they can get the state to assert their legal rights on behalf of everyone, and companies don't have the ability to carve out exceptions that look reasonable while actually violating your basic rights.

Second sentence says it all...

[CrimsonAvenger]

and 48 percent wish 'more was being done about it.'

Which can be loosely translated as "I hear people are concerned about this, so I guess *I* should be concerned about this, but it's not really worth my time or trouble to bother ACTUALLY doing something about"....

Re:Second sentence says it all...

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Yeah, it's almost like my life is finite and reading legalese isn't what I want to do with it. I want it outsourced to a third party. You know, like making sure my hot dog won't kill me. What's that called... government regulators.

Re:Second sentence says it all...

[CrimsonAvenger]

Yeah, it's almost like my life is finite and reading legalese isn't what I want to do with it. I want it outsourced to a third party. You know, like making sure my hot dog won't kill me. What's that called... government regulators.

So, you don't trust your fellow man, but you DO trust "government regulators", who are, by and large, your fellow man?

"I'm from the government, I'm here to help"....

Re:Second sentence says it all...

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I find the rank-and-file employees tend to be pretty competent. The incompetence comes from the top-down. Probably because of who gets elected and the promises they have to make.

Re:Second sentence says it all...

[Jason Levine]

The government is (at least in theory) accountable to the people. If the people don't like the actions of members of the government, those government officials can lose their jobs. Companies aren't accountable to people in general - only to those who pay them money. If your information is being sold by company A to companies B, C, D, and E, then you're not their customer - you're their product. They won't care if you don't like your information being sold because you have no say in what they do and likely don't have the legal muscle to stop them. (Especially if they're a big company like Equifax.) However, the government can stop them.

This isn't to say that government regulations are always the solution. Just that they are a useful tool to give people power over companies that wouldn't otherwise be beholden to anyone.

In other news

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

People are concerned about corruption in politics, yet keep electing the same sumbitches.

Or maybe...

[Travelsonic]

We shouldn't act like people are idiots for not reading something incredibly lengthy, wordy, and worded in such a way where they would not understand it, and instead point the finger, at least partially, at the people who insist on keeping these wordy EULAs without providing something that explains it in plain English?

I'm not worried about privacy

[rsilvergun]

I'm worried about healthcare, wages, retirement when I either can't work or nobody'll hire me. I'm worried about school for my kids, especially college.

Surveillance is just a symptom of oppression. The root cause is always money. If you want to render it moot the solution is to make sure everybody (and I mean _everybody_, even lazy people and the ones you don't like) has access to food, shelter, healthcare, education & transportation (the latter being required to effectively access the former).

Until we end the rat race we're going to be vulnerable. You're not free as long as somebody controls access to the things you need to live.