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.

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...

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I don't trust people to act against their self-interest. The regulators at least don't have a direct profit motive.

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

I never understood this complaint. I mean, the government seems pretty helpful to me. Certainly, the times I hear about government help, usually the problem is that there is not enough (See, Puerto Rico.) Do you have examples of widespread problems?