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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This testimony is
based on my experience as the academic advisor to 45 national privacy surveys
between 1979 and 2001, and my analysis of more than 120 privacy surveys held in
the Privacy & American Business survey library. I am answering questions
posed by the subcommittee as a political scientist and privacy expert.
1. There has been
a well-documented transformation in consumer privacy attitudes over the past
decade, moving concerns from a modest matter for a minority of consumers in the
1980s to an issue of high intensity expressed by more than three-fourth of
American consumers in 2001. In addition, a majority of consumers has become
quite privacy assertive in their relations with businesses, making decisions on
who to use and what information to provide based on their own privacy
judgments.
2. But US consumers also want the benefits of a
consumer-service economy, and they are not monolithic in their privacy views.
Tracked across the past decade, they divide into three segments with very
different general approaches to privacy views and tradeoffs -- a high, medium,
and low privacy perspective described in the main testimony. About 125 million
American adults fall into the moderate -- Privacy Pragmatist -- category. How
to merit and secure the trust of this group should be the focus of businesses
and lawmakers alike.
3. The driving factors behind high privacy
concerns stem from high levels of distrust of institutions and the fears of
technology abuse. Privacy concerns are centered on intrusions, manipulation,
and discrimination; on special concerns about third parties capturing the
sensitive self-revelations users are making on the internet; and on consumer
concerns about identity theft and stalking through capture of personal
information.
4. The great
majority of consumers favor a notice and choice approach to privacy policies.
They hope that business will do this well but stand ready to invoke government
intervention if business fails. For especially sensitive types of information
-- financial and health -- and for online protection, large majorities favor
legislative standards. However, surveys generally do not offer much useful
data, on the details of such legislation, since consumers are not policy wonks,
and the debates over costs and economic dislocations in adopting policies such
as “all-opt-in’ are just beginning in to be heard in the legislative chambers.
Three Subcommittee Questions
The Subcommittee
has asked me to present a critical analysis of privacy surveys published over
the past decade, offering my views on three questions. Has there been a
transformation of the privacy concerns of American consumers in the Internet
age? If so, what are the sources of this development? And what do these
concerns suggest about legislative choices on privacy protection?
My perspective in
responding is that of a political scientist and privacy expert (author of Privacy
and Freedom, 1967) who has been the academic advisor to 45 national public
and leadership surveys on privacy since 1970 that were sponsored by a wide
variety of foundations, government-research agencies, and business
organizations. (A short bio has been provided in Appendix One, along
with a Selected List in appendix Two of the privacy surveys on which I have
been the academic advisor.) Since the 1970's, I have been presenting the
results of my privacy surveys to Congressional committees, the FTC and FCC, and
various Federal Executive Agencies.
At the outset, of
course, legislators should recognize that contemporary survey research is a
complex blend of art, science, and advocacy. No one should accept “survey
findings” -- on privacy or any other social or political issue -- without
examining the content and order of the questions, the representativeness of the
sample, and the perspectives of the sponsors.
Based on my reading
of the solid surveys within a larger pool of over 120 U.S. privacy survey
reports collected in the Privacy & American Business library, I believe
these offer useful answers to the questions posed by the Subcommittee:
1. Has There Has Been
A Transformation In Consumer Privacy Attitudes Over The Past Decade? Definitely
yes.
Surveys show that
today nine out of ten Americans are concerned about the potential misuse of
their personal information; three fourths of them (77%) say they are now “very
concerned.” Even more significantly, a majority of American consumers have
become privacy-assertive. They are refusing to give their personal information
to businesses when they feel it is too personal or not really needed, asking
not to be marketed to, and declining to patronize a business because of
uncertainty about how their personal information would be used. Concern about
privacy is the single most cited reason Net users give for not making purchases
and for non-Net-users declining to go onto the Net.
At the same time,
however, surveys show that most consumers want the opportunities and benefits
of our consumer-service and marketing-driven society. With proper notice and
choice, more than three out of four consider it acceptable that businesses
compile profiles of their interests and communicate offers to them.
Further, consumers
continue to divide into three basic segments that my surveys have been tracking
since the early 1990's, when it comes to overall consumer privacy preferences.
these are Privacy Fundamentalists
(25%), who reject offers of benefits, want only opt-in, and seek legislative
privacy rules; Privacy Unconcerned (now down to 12% from 20% three years
ago), who are comfortable giving their information for almost any consumer
value; and -- the most important group for Congresspersons to understand -- the
Privacy Pragmatists (63% or 125 million strong). Privacy Pragmatists ask
what's the benefit to them, what privacy risks arise, what protections are
offered, and do they trust the company or industry to apply those safeguards
and to respect their individual choice. How to create conditions of trust for
the Privacy Pragmatists is the challenge for businesses and law-makers alike.
Overall, surveys
show that privacy now scores as one of the top consumer and social-policy
issues in the U.S., especially intense among women, a strong concern of both
conservatives and liberals, and a political imperative for both Republicans and
Democrats.
2. Do We Understand
The Driving Sources Of This Transformation? Yes, We do
Consumers report
that their views on privacy do not come solely from what they read or hear in
the media but strongly reflect their own personal experiences and those of
family and friends. As far as driving factors, my surveys since 1978 have shown
that the higher a respondent's general distrust of institutions and fears of
technology abuse by organizations, the greater will be the concerns about
privacy. We also know that “privacy” in the consumer-business relationship has
three components expressed by survey respondents: anti-intrusion
(against unwanted mail or telemarketing); anti-manipulation (against
compiling profiles that allow “hidden persuader” marketing); and anti-discrimination
(against secret standards being used for making consumer risk-assessments, as
for credit or insurance).
Three additional
underlying factors fueling current high privacy concerns have been documented
in surveys: (a) fears about tracking or hacking the unprecedented
self-revelation that most Internet users engage in (with email, forums,
information-seeking, and purchasing); (b) concerns about tangible and serious
harm from identity theft, through capture of consumer's personally-identifying
information, and (c) fears, especially by women, of stalkers or child-predators
gaining location information from either public-record sources or Internet
communications.
3. So, What Do Consumers Want? Systems for
Informed Privacy Choices, Implemented and Enforced.
In general,
majorities of consumers think it would be best if businesses put good privacy
policies in place voluntarily, and saw to their wide implementation; if they
fail to do so, consumers want law to step in.
Organizational
surveys in 2000-2001 show that a majority of American businesses have -- at
last -- gotten the message that most consumers really care, and will make
decisions to assert their interests on the basis of privacy. Surveys of
business conduct on and off the Net show most businesses are now adopting
meaningful privacy policies, and a majority of consumers say in public surveys
that they think this is happening. Surveys have also shown that a majority of
the American public does not favor a European-Union-style omnibus national
privacy law and a national data protection regulatory agency.
There
are some new issues we have yet to test in surveys but are beginning to do. A
survey that Privacy & American Business is now putting in the field, for
example, asks consumers whether they think that the appointment of Corporate
Privacy Officers (CPOs) by companies is a positive development, what consumers
want CPOs to do, and whether such institutionalization of privacy
responsibility in individual firms would enhance consumer confidence in such
companies.
However, it is
clear that where especially sensitive consumer information is being collected
and exchanged today -- in the financial and health areas in particular --
surveys show the public wants to see legal privacy-protection rules enacted and
enforcement actively pursued. Reflecting that overwhelming sentiment, Congress
included Title V in the Financial Modernization Act of 1999 and both Presidents
Clinton and Bush supported the health privacy regulations of HIPAA. Surveys
showing overwhelming Net-user hostility to spam will, and in my judgment
should, lead Congress to pass anti-spam legislation at this session. Similar
survey results showing strong public opposition to uses of genetic information
for employment or health-insurance purposes suggest that well-designed
legislation here would be responsive to the public's deep concerns.
As
for online privacy legislation, surveys show strong majorities favoring
“action” by Congress to set framework rules. But general-public surveys do not
provide good data on what kind of online privacy legislation consumers would
support, since the public is not made up of policy wonks and the key policy
issues lie in the legislative details. Debates are just developing on what true
costs and market dislocations would be created by some of the sweeping,
“all-opt-in” proposals for online privacy legislation, and these remain to be
tested -- if indeed they can be -- through survey methods.
Summing Up
A
decade of extensive survey research, much of it solid and credible, documents a
steadily rising rational and justified public demand to set new,
privacy-protecting rules for collection and use of consumer personal
information by businesses. The work of this decade. among survey researchers
and Congresspersons alike, is to discover what will persuade the 125 million
American Privacy Pragmatists that we have the right blend of business
initiatives and legal oversight for good consumer information relationships
with business.
APPENDICES
APPENDIX ONE -- SHORT BIO OF DR. ALAN F. WESTIN
Dr. Alan F. Westin is Professor of Public
Law and Government Emeritus at Columbia University; Publisher of Privacy & American Business; and
President of the Center for Social & Legal Research. He has a law degree
and a PhD in political science from
Harvard University, and is the author or editor of 26 books on constitutional
law, civil liberties and civil rights, privacy, and American politics.
Professor Westin’s major books on
privacy -- Privacy and Freedom (1967) and Databanks in a Free Society
(1972) -- were pioneering works that prompted U.S. privacy legislation and
helped launch global privacy movements in many democratic nations in the 1960's
and 70's. He has also specialized in studying the impact of information
technologies on national and local governmental operations, from decision-making
to citizen services and freedom of information administration, illustrated by
his 1971 book, Information Technology in a Democracy.
Over the past forty years, Dr. Westin
has been a member of U.S. federal and state government privacy commissions and an
expert witness before legislative committees and regulatory agencies. These
activities cover privacy issues in financial services, credit and
consumer-reporting, direct marketing, health care, telecommunications,
employment, law enforcement, online and interactive services, and
social-services.
Dr. Westin has been a privacy consultant
to many U.S. federal, state, and local government agencies and foundations. He
has consulted on privacy and helped write privacy codes for over one hundred
companies, including IBM, Security Pacific National Bank, Equifax, American
Express, Citicorp, Bell Atlantic, Intel, Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield,
Prudential, Bank of America, Chrysler, A.T.&T., SmithKline Beecham, News
Corporation, VISA, Merck, and Glaxo Wellcome.
He has also spoken about privacy at more
than 800 national and international business and industry meetings since the
late 1960's, as well as appearing on hundreds of national and international
television programs. He has keynoted privacy conferences around the world, from
Canada to England, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy, Sweden,
Japan and Hong Kong.
Between 1978 and 2001, he has been the
academic advisor to Louis Harris & Associates (now Harris Interactive) for
25 national surveys of public and leadership attitudes toward consumer,
employee, and citizen privacy issues, in the United States, Canada, Germany,
and Britain. He has also done 20 national planning and proprietary privacy
surveys for companies, with Opinion Research Corporation of Princeton, N.J.
In 1993, Dr. Westin founded Privacy & American Business, a
non-profit think tank that provides expert analysis and a balanced voice on
business-privacy issues. P&AB publishes a bi-monthly newsletter; conducts
an annual national conference in Washington on “Managing The Privacy
Revolution”; and leads a Chief Privacy Officers Program and a Global Business
Privacy Policies Project. P&AB also manages privacyexchange.org – a
global Internet web site on consumers, commerce, and data protection worldwide,
covering privacy developments in over 100 nations.
Since 1994, Dr. Westin has been co-principal of Privacy
Consulting Group (PCG), with Robert R. Belair. PCG is a leading privacy
consultancy that assists companies, government agencies, and non-profits to
build privacy management systems and establish leadership positions on privacy
for both their consumer and employee relationships.
APPENDIX TWO
Selected List Of
Surveys, 1979-2001, On Which Dr. Alan F. Westin Served As Academic Advisor
1. “The Dimensions of Privacy,” Louis Harris & Associates and
Dr. Alan F. Westin, for Sentry Insurance; national public sample, 2,131 adults;
1979.
2. “The Equifax Report on Consumers in the Information Age,” Louis
Harris & Associates and Dr. Alan F. Westin, for Equifax Inc.; national
public sample, 2,254 adults; 1990.
3. “Harris-Equifax Consumer Privacy Survey, 1991,” Louis Harris
& Associates and Dr. Alan F. Westin, for Equifax Inc.; national public
sample, 1,255 adults; 1991.
4. “Harris-Equifax Consumer Privacy Survey, 1992,” Louis Harris
& Associates and Dr. Alan F. Westin, for Equifax Inc.; national public
sample, 1,254 adults; 1992.
5. “Privacy & American Business
Louis Harris Survey on Consumer Privacy Concerns, 1993,” Louis Harris
& Associates and Dr. Alan F. Westin; national public sample, 2,506 adults;
1993.
6. “Health Information Privacy
Survey, 1993,” Louis Harris & Associates and Dr. Alan F. Westin,
for Equifax Inc.; national public sample; 1,000 adults; 1993.
7. “Equifax-Harris Consumer Privacy Survey, 1994,” Louis Harris
& Associates and Dr. Alan F. Westin, for Equifax Inc.; national public
sample, 1,005 adults; 1994.
8. “Workplace Health and Privacy Issues: A Survey of Private Sector
Employees and Leaders,” Louis Harris & Associates and Dr. Alan F.
Westin, for the Educational Film Center; sample of 1,000 employees working in
private-sector companies with 15 or more employees; 1994.
9. “Consumers and Credit Reporting, 1994,” Louis Harris &
Associates and Dr. Alan F. Westin, for MasterCard International and Visa
U.S.A.; national public sample, 1,001 adults; 1994.
10. “Interactive Services, Consumers, and Privacy,” Louis Harris
& Associates and Dr. Alan F. Westin, for Privacy & American Business, sponsored by Bell Atlantic,
Citicorp, and U.S. WEST; national public sample; 1,000 adults; 1994.
11. “Equifax-Harris Mid-Decade Consumer Privacy Survey,” Louis
Harris & Associates and Dr. Alan F. Westin, for Equifax Inc.; national
public sample, 1,006 adults; 1995.
12.
“Consumer Privacy Issues,” Louis Harris & Associates and Dr.
Alan F. Westin, for Privacy &
American Business; national public
sample, 1,000 adults, 1995.
13. “Genetic Testing and Privacy,” Louis Harris & Associates and
Dr. Alan F. Westin, for the Center for Social and Legal Research; national
public sample, 1,002 adults; 1995.
14. “1996 Equifax-Harris Consumer Privacy Survey,” Louis Harris
& Associates and Dr. Alan F. Westin, for Equifax Inc.; national public
sample, 1,005 adults; 1996.
15. “Commerce, Communication, and Privacy Online,”
Louis Harris &Associates and Dr. Alan F. Westin; national public sample of
computer users, 1,009 adults; 1997.
16. “E-Commerce & Privacy: What Net Users
Want,” Louis Harris and Associates, Inc. and Dr. Alan F. Westin for
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP; national public sample, 1,011 adults; 1998.
17. “Privacy Concerns & Consumer Choice,”
Louis Harris & Associates and Dr. Alan F. Westin for Ameritech; national
public sample, 1,008 adults; 1998.
18. “IBM-Harris Multi-National Consumer Privacy
Survey,” Harris Interactive and Dr. Alan F. Westin for IBM;
international public sample in the U.S., U.K., and Germany, approximately 5,000
adults; 1999.
19. “ ‘Freebies’ and Privacy: What Net Users Think,”
Opinion Research Corporation and Dr. Alan F. Westin; national public sample,
1,014 adults and 457 Net users; 1999.
20. “Personalized Marketing and Privacy on the
Net: What Consumers Want,” Opinion Research Corporation and Dr. Alan F.
Westin for DoubleClick; national public sample 1,011 adults; 1999.
21. “Public Records and the Responsible Use of
Information,” Opinion Research Corporation and Dr. Alan F. Westin for
ChoicePoint, Inc.; national public sample, 1,011 adults; 2000.
APPENDIX THREE
Extracts from a
profile of American consumer privacy experiences, attitudes, and policy
preferences, published in Public Perspective, November-December 2000.
The title of the full article is: Alan F. Westin, “Intrusions: Privacy
Tradeoffs in a Free Society.”
A SURVEY PROFILE OF AMERICAN CONSUMERS AND PRIVACY
A. Privacy in
Mainstream Affairs
•
Privacy has become in our time a prime social value. If the
Framers of the Declaration of Independence were re-writing that document today,
79% of the public believe they would add privacy to the trinity of life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. (1990) Majorities this year in one
survey ranked privacy just behind freedom of speech and ahead of freedom of
religion and the right to vote as the most important American right.
• Americans register deep
concern about the state of privacy. In 1999, 92% said they are concerned
about threats to their personal privacy, with 69% saying they are “very
concerned”; 94% say they are worried (77% very) about “possible misuse” of
their personal information. And, loss of privacy was ranked in a Wall St.
Journal poll in 2000 as the topic of highest concern to respondents in the 21st
century, ahead of wars, terrorism, and environmental disasters.
• Consumer privacy is now a
burning social and political issue. 80% of the public believe that “consumers have lost all control
over how personal information about them is collected and used by
companies.” Consumers are most
concerned about how their financial and medical information is being handled.
While 59% in 1999 felt that “existing laws and organizational practices in the
United States provide a reasonable level of consumer privacy protection today,”
strong majorities favor enacting new laws to strengthen privacy rules for use
of financial and medical information.
• American consumers have become
privacy-activists. In 1999, 78% say they have refused to give information
to a business or company because [they] thought it was not really needed or was
too personal”; 58% have asked a company to remove their name from marketing
lists; and 54% say they have decided not to buy something from a company
because they weren't sure how they would use the personal information.
B. Privacy on the Internet
• Offline privacy concerns echo
and are magnified online. 92% of Net users say they are concerned about
threats to their personal privacy when using the Internet, and 72% say they are
“very concerned.”
• The main online threats
perceived. In ranges from 70-95%, concerns focus on people reading private
e-mails; tracking clickstream patterns to learn where people surf; compiling
profiles of Net use for marketing purposes; and collecting information about
children for marketing purposes without parental consent.
• Net users look for and act
upon privacy policies. 85% of Net users in 1999 say it is absolutely
essential or very important that web sites display privacy notices and explain
how they will use personal information they collect. And, in ranges from
55-64%, Net users say they have refused to give personal information to financial,
retail, health, or insurance web sites, or refused to purchase goods or
services at these sites because of privacy concerns.
• Majorities now favor privacy
legislation for the Internet. In 1999-2000, public and Net majorities in
the 60-75% ranges in various surveys believe that laws are now needed to
protect Internet privacy, beyond existing ones for children or regulating spam.
BENEATH THE TOP LINES
There is no doubt that the kinds of
privacy sentiments illustrated are the top lines of almost all the privacy
surveys in the past decade, with the trend lines going steadily higher year by
year. These are the media-featured public concerns driving consumer privacy as
a key business and political issue today, especially in the Internet arena.[i]
But we know that people differ in
how they want to set their privacy boundaries; that privacy competes with other
high social values and people engage in balancing choices; and that there is a
politics of privacy at work in setting new rules or laws. What do the surveys
tell us on these key questions, and particularly about privacy in the unique
setting of the Internet?
A. Driving Factors: The
Harris-Westin Distrust Index
Harris-Westin surveys from 1978 to the present have found the
driving factors behind privacy attitudes, both in general and in specific
consumer areas, to be a combination of two orientations: the individual's level
of distrust in institutions and fears of technology abuse.
Our surveys created a four-item
Distrust Index, measuring distrust in government, voting, and business and
fears that technology is almost out of control. The higher the Distrust Score, the more a respondent will express
concern about threats to privacy, believe that consumers have lost all control
over uses of their information by business, reject the relevance and propriety
of information sought in particular situations, call for legislation to forbid
various information practices, etc.
For example, in 1995, on 13 of the
survey's 16 questions asking about general privacy concerns and measuring
specific privacy attitudes, the strongest privacy positions were registered by
the High Distrustful respondents; the next strongest by the Medium Distrustful;
and so on through the Low to Not Distrustful.
Since a barrage of national surveys
over the past two decades confirms that a majority of the American public has
medium to high institutional distrust, and fears about technology-misuse run
deep in the population in all demographic groups, The Distrust-Index suggests
that the public's strong privacy concerns will carry forward rather than fade
in the early 21st century.
B. Segmentation of the Public
On Privacy
While there are fascinating
demographic variations on privacy (e.g., women are 10-20 percentage points more
intense on most consumer and Internet privacy concerns than men), the most
important analysis of public attitudes probably involves how the public divides
on consumer privacy issues.
Harris-Westin surveys show a
continuing division of the public into three segments:
•
Privacy Fundamentalists (about 25%). This group sees privacy as
an especially high value, rejects the claims of many organizations to need or
be entitled to get personal information for their business or governmental
programs, thinks more individuals should simply refuse to give out information
they are asked for, and favors enactment of strong federal and state laws to
secure privacy rights and control organizational discretion. Privacy
Fundamentalists score at the High level in the Harris Distrust Index.
•
Privacy Pragmatists (about 55%). This group weighs the value to
them and society of various business or government programs calling for
personal information, examines the relevance and social propriety of the
information sought, looks to see whether fair information practices are being
widely enough observed, and then decides whether they will agree or disagree
with specific information activities -- with their trust in the particular
industry or company involved a critical decisional factor. The Pragmatists
favor voluntary standards over legislation and government enforcement, but they
will back legislation when they think not enough is being done -- or
meaningfully done -- by voluntary means. Privacy Pragmatists generally score at
the Medium and some High levels in Distrust.
•
Privacy Unconcerned (about 20%) This group doesn't know what the
“privacy fuss” is all about, supports the benefits of most organizational
programs over warnings about privacy abuse, has little problem with supplying
their personal information to government authorities or businesses, and sees no
need for creating another government bureaucracy to protect someone's privacy.
Not surprisingly, the Privacy Unconcerned score at the Low to No Distrust
levels on the Distrust Index.
The percentages into which the
public divides vary as particular privacy issues are examined. For example, on
issues of medical privacy, the Privacy Fundamentalists rise to about 35%.
In the politics of privacy, the
battle is for the hearts and minds of the Privacy Pragmatists. If most of them
feel that their personal information is being used fairly and properly by
businesses, especially online, they join the Privacy Unconcerned to make up a
75% level support for the existing rules and practices. But if most of the
Privacy Pragmatists feel that information practices are intrusive or their
information is being misued, they join the Privacy Fundamentalists to make up a
majority seeking legislative or regulatory measures, or consumer boycotts.
C. Most Consumers Are Shrewd Privacy Balancers
In several dozen Harris-Westin
surveys, we see that a majority of the public -- in the 60-66% ranges -- say
they ARE interested in learning about new products and services, and support
businesses they patronize compiling activity profiles so that relevant offers
can be communicated to them -- if the information is relevant and if fair
information practices are followed:
•
When respondents get lists of types of information that businesses could
ask for to make risk-assessments, a majority applies pretty sophisticated
notions of decisional relevance. For example, strong majorities accept the
relevance of payment histories, bankruptcy status, litigation pending, and
similar matters when credit grantors are asked to make loans or issue credit
cards.
•
The public majority then looks to see whether what have come to be known
as fair information practices standards are being embraced and observed --
notice, choice, access, security, verification, remedies, etc. If they are, a
majority of the public supports the uses of consumer information for
risk-assessment, personalized marketing, etc.
Again and again, surveys document
that strong majority concern or even disapproval that is registered initially
will shift to strong majority approval when the survey presents key fair
information practices and asks -- if these were observed (and sometimes, if
these were written into law) -- whether the information practices would then be
acceptable to respondents.
The movement of majorities from
initial registered concern to majority approval -- if safeguards are adopted -- shows that privacy is not seen by
the large majority of the American public as an absolute, in the sense of
expecting businesses that provide services to consumers or government's social
programs to operate without access to relevant and socially-appropriate
personal information. Rather, the judgment process tested in the surveys
demonstrates that, to most Americans, the key issue is almost always a matter
of defining, adopting, and observing reasonable safeguards to avoid or limit
present or potential abuses.
D. Privacy Advocates and the
Public: An Internet Case Study
One function of good survey
research is to test whether advocates for various public policies do or do not
speak for majorities of the public, either in general or in specific
situations. Given the figures of high public concern about privacy threats, it
is clear that privacy advocates and consumer groups are in sync with public majorities
at the general level of privacy concern, and in calling for government action
in some specific areas.
When it comes to issues of
individual choice among consumers, however, and some of the opt-out versus
opt-in debates, surveys show that privacy advocates may speak only for the
Privacy Fundamentalists, and not even for all of them.
For example, when some web sites in
1998 advertised offers of various gifts and free services in return for online
users providing personal information, most of the established privacy advocates
denounced this as a “Fautian bargain” and a dangerous surrender of privacy. I
tested this situation in an ORC survey sponsored by my non-profit organization,
Privacy & American Business. We asked:
“Some websites offer Net users a valuable
benefit – such as free e-mail, a free
website, special discounts on products, or even a free PC – if the person will agree to provide some
personal information in return. If the website informs individuals fully about
what will be done with this personal information, do you think it is fair or
not fair for EACH of the following things to be required, in return for the
benefit?”
·
87% of Net users felt it fair to collect information
about “consumer interests and preferences and use this only for statistical
analysis of interest and buying trends among Net users.”
·
79% felt it is fair for persons receiving the benefits
to agree that “banner-type ads for products and services can appear on the PC
they are given, or at the Web site they visit to receive the free service.”
·
59% felt it is fair for persons getting the benefit to
agree that their “e-mail address can be provided to reputable companies, so
they can send offers of products or services that reflect that person’s
particular interests.”
Our survey also
posed the question of whether such programs threaten good privacy practices on
the Net.
“Some people believe it is wrong
for companies on the Net to ask individuals to give personal information or
watch ads in return for a benefit, on the ground that this leads people to
‘give up their privacy.’ Others say it is right to let each individual decide
whether they want to provide information for uses that are fully explained, in
return for benefits. Which view do you agree with most – that participation in
these programs violates privacy or that this is a matter for individual privacy
choices?”
Eighty-six per cent believe
participation in information-for-benefits programs is a matter for individual
privacy choice and 12% think participating in these programs violates privacy.
In this particular episode, privacy advocates spoke for just 12% of the
Net-user public, and the informed-individual-choice position drew overwhelming
Net user support.
CONCLUSIONS
A profound confrontation is under
way on the Internet, with literally billions of dollars and the future of
e-commerce at stake. On the one side is the dominant business model: “we must
know you to serve you.” On the other side is the majority consumer model: “I'll
decide what you know about me.” How to set the ground rules for web sites
collecting vital and fair consumer information for e-Commerce while empowering
Net users to choose what they provide, and under what conditions, will be the
work of this decade.
Surveys can do a great deal to
inform this process.
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