American ‘Net Users Rank Privacy as High ConcernPRINCETON, N.J.
Two-thirds of e-mail users believe that the federal government should pass more laws to ensure citizen privacy online compared to 33 percent who think the current laws are adequate, according to an online Gallup poll taken in June. The poll, conducted June 14-26 over the Internet, revealed that e-mail users are most worried about misuse of their credit card information and feel least comfortable giving out their Social Security number and credit card numbers online.
Other poll results showed that nearly eight in 10 e-mail users are at least somewhat concerned about the privacy of personal information that they give out on the Internet while 28 percent of e-mail users are “very concerned.”
Marketing activities and the use of Internet “cookies” also make e-mail users uneasy: 73 percent are concerned about companies keeping records on their Internet usage, and 71 percent are concerned about Internet “cookies” that track where they go on the Internet.
Attitudes about monitoring Internet and e-mail use depend on who is doing the monitoring. Sixty-one percent of e-mail users indicate that they are concerned about their Internet service provider monitoring their use of the Internet and e-mail. Just 39 percent say they are concerned about their business or company doing the same thing.
The results are based on Internet interviews with 391American adults, aged 18 and over, originally contacted in a telephone survey. For results based on this sample, it can be said with 95 percent confidence that the maximum error attributable to sampling and other random
effects is plus or minus 5 percentage points.
For more results, the full survey can be viewed at <www.gallup.com/poll/releases/
pr010628.asp>.
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