********* Subject: Public's True Privacy Concerns Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 14:51:34 -0400 From: "Jonathan Zuck" <jzuckat_private> To: "Declan McCullagh" <declanat_private> Declan, There is a growing disparity on capitol hill between those who seek to protect people from the decisions they make and those who seek to preserve their ability to make them. We thought this poll on the public's real thoughts on privacy regulation would be instructive to Politech readers. As is the case with a great many of your readers, we favor protecting Americans from decisions they can't make (i.e. sharing information with the goverment) but seek to preserve the decisions they ARE able to make. Privacy is a great example. ACT's poll which called 1001 registered voters nationwide was designed to go beyond the superficial question of whether consumers feel if privacy is important. The purpose of the poll was to drill down to find out specifically what privacy related issues are of concern and how these concerns should be addressed. It is clear from the consumer responses that they are indeed savvy with respect to how to protect their privacy. Some topline conclusions: 1. People are indeed concerned about protecting their personal information, but when asked for specific privacy concerns, they're all over the map(identity theft, government abuse, spam, porn) 2. they don't think laws should treat online privacy differently than offline privacy. 3. they prefer enforcement of existing laws over creating new laws. 4. they want federal laws instead of state laws. 5. they do pay attention to privacy policies when they shop online. 6. some cited specific abuses of online information. When asked for specifics, they cite spam, credit card fraud, and identity theft. The study materials are available on ACT's web site: http://www.actonline.org/issues/privacypoll.asp Jonathan Zuck President Association for Competitive Technology jzuckat_private <mailto:jzuckat_private> ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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