GVU's Seventh WWW User Survey Privacy Graphs

What Information Ought to be Collected per Page Request

Notes:

If users were given their way, how would they implement protocols and applications with respect to what information is available to be logged per page requested over the WWW? As with the Sixth Survey, three out of four users agree that sites ought to be able to record the page that is requested (74.27% Seventh vs. 76.60% Sixth) and the time of the page request (70.95% Seventh vs. 74.42% Sixth). Under half (43.98% Seventh vs. 43.71% Sixth) feel that the browser that users are using ought to be collected. The machine name/address (28.04% Seventh vs. 27.00% Sixth), the operating system the user operates (28.33 Seventh vs. 26.83% Sixth), the user's email address (19.56% Seventh vs. 21.03% Sixth), and the location of the user (18.36% Seventh vs. 19.70% Sixth) are not high on people's list either. It is interesting to note that most users of the WWW can reliably gather all of the above information except email and location for every page request.

When asked about an identifier that would uniquely label users across sessions at a site, only one out of every five (20.75% Seventh vs. 19.08% Sixth) thought this should be possible. Yet, identifiers already exist and are widely supported by browsers, via cookies. In recent months, the controversy between data privacy advocates and the advertising community has received considerable attention in the popular media as well as within the US government. The data collected by the Sixth and Seventh Surveys do not support continued user of persistent session identifiers.

Table of Data for All Categories

What Information Ought to be Collected per Page Request	All	Male	Female	USA	Europe	19-25	26-50	50+
Don t Know	1468.00 10.48%	859.00 9.06%	593.00 13.44%	1181.00 10.55%	103.00 11.33%	224.00 8.91%	833.00 9.89%	259.00 13.67%
Email Address	2741.00 19.56%	1678.00 17.70%	1031.00 23.37%	2214.00 19.77%	127.00 13.97%	361.00 14.35%	1611.00 19.13%	530.00 27.98%
Location	2573.00 18.36%	1794.00 18.93%	757.00 17.16%	1898.00 16.95%	229.00 25.19%	513.00 20.40%	1499.00 17.80%	371.00 19.59%
Machine	3929.00 28.04%	3013.00 31.79%	886.00 20.08%	3039.00 27.14%	313.00 34.43%	886.00 35.23%	2306.00 27.38%	421.00 22.23%
OS	3970.00 28.33%	3099.00 32.70%	850.00 19.27%	3113.00 27.80%	323.00 35.53%	877.00 34.87%	2375.00 28.20%	395.00 20.86%
Requested Page	10408.00 74.27%	7201.00 75.98%	3124.00 70.81%	8347.00 74.54%	670.00 73.71%	1904.00 75.71%	6371.00 75.65%	1309.00 69.11%
Screen Size	884.00 6.31%	735.00 7.75%	142.00 3.22%	688.00 6.14%	75.00 8.25%	235.00 9.34%	491.00 5.83%	59.00 3.12%
Session ID	2908.00 20.75%	2197.00 23.18%	694.00 15.73%	2300.00 20.54%	225.00 24.75%	574.00 22.82%	1790.00 21.25%	332.00 17.53%
Time of Request	9943.00 70.95%	6929.00 73.11%	2928.00 66.36%	7983.00 71.29%	620.00 68.21%	1871.00 74.39%	6026.00 71.55%	1266.00 66.84%
Which Browser	6163.00 43.98%	4627.00 48.82%	1497.00 33.93%	4879.00 43.57%	452.00 49.72%	1305.00 51.89%	3751.00 44.54%	598.00 31.57%

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