Opinions Of Anonymity
Notes:
- Privacy and anonymity go hand-in-hand, but exactly how does the Web community
feel about the specific issues surround anonymity on the Internet? The below question
asked people to rate their agreement/disagreement on a 5-point scale, with '1'
representing strong disagreement, '5' representing strong agreement and '3' neutrality.
Nearly everyone felt strongly that people ought to be able to have private communications
over the Internet (4.70). People tend to seriously value the anonymous nature of the
Internet (4.46). Most people prefer anonymous payment systems (3.93) and feel that the
Internet needs new laws to protect privacy (3.79). While people tend to agree that they
ought to be able to take on multiple roles/aliases on the Internet (3.67), the community
seems to be all over the board on the use of key escrow systems (3.09), with nearly half
stating agreement with a key escrow system and half expressing disagreement.
- There is considerable consensus across the strata on the issue of anonymity. Differences
did occur between European and US users on the need for new laws to protect privacy (3.59
European vs 3.79 US). This is most likely the result of stronger privacy laws in Europe
than the US. Females are more likely to prefer a key escrow systems (3.34) than men (2.89).
The 19-25 yr old generation places more importance on anonymity overall and the ability to
assume multiple aliases than the elder generation (3.87 19-25 vs 3.32 50+). The younger
generation also felt more strongly that new laws are necessary to protect online privacy.
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