Opinions of Data Privacy Issues

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Notes:

• For this question, users were asked to rate their level of agreement with various statements about data privacy issues. There were 5 choices, ranging from Agree Strongly (5) to Disagree Strongly (1).

• The statement that respondents agreed most strongly with (4.6/5.0) was: "I value being able to visit sites on the Internet in an anonymous manner." A close second at 4.4 was: "A user ought to have complete control over which sites get what demographic information." The desire to control their own information is also seen in the conditions under which users are willing to reveal that information. (See: Terms & Conditions.)

• Continuing to emphasize the importance of control, many respondents agreed that they "ought to be able to take on different aliases/roles at different times on the Internet" (3.7). But they strongly disagreed with the idea that "content providers have the right to resell information about its users to other companies" (1.7).

• Most users, however, recognize that Web site designers have a legitimate need to collect demographic information in order to better design their Web sites (3.8) and to market their sites to advertisers (3.8). Most also recognize a role for advertising-supported content (4.0).

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Notes:

• The differences between genders were minimal for most statements, except that females were less likely to see a need for advertising-supported content (3.8) and disagreed even more strongly with the right of content providers to resell demographic information (1.5).

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Notes:

• There were no noticeable differences for different age groups for this question.

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Table of Data for All Categories

ads	All	Male	Female	USA	Europe	19-25	26-50	50+
ads	4.01	4.13	3.79	4.06	3.94	3.96	4.10	4.00
alias	3.74	3.72	3.76	3.75	3.62	3.89	3.69	3.39
anonymous	4.63	4.63	4.62	4.65	4.54	4.67	4.63	4.49
control	4.38	4.39	4.36	4.39	4.37	4.32	4.40	4.41
design	3.78	3.79	3.80	3.78	3.78	3.81	3.82	3.73
marketing	3.82	3.88	3.69	3.84	3.73	3.80	3.88	3.83
resale	1.65	1.73	1.46	1.69	1.53	1.58	1.70	1.66

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For more information or to submit comments:
send e-mail to www-survey@cc.gatech.edu.

GVU's WWW Surveying Team
Graphics, Visualization, & Usability Center
College of Computing
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA 30332-0280