Re: State of Social Web Update

Hi All, 

Um, I do think that people are aware of privacy, and have some links to studies which suggest that this is the case. I think that the issue is that, privacy as a concept is not a compelling argument in itself, given the facebook UI is so good, and they have so many users, why would you bother leaving. I use facebook here as it is definitely the current flavour of the month wrt SNSs. 

In January 2010, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg told TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington[1] in a live interview that he thought the concept of privacy no longer applies to the modern day[2]. Since this claim the below studies have attempted to understand people’s feelings towards privacy:

Pew Report on Online Reputation

Pew Research, a US based research firm, recently conducted a report detailing peoples attitudes to privacy, and online reputation. The report entitled “Reputation, Management, and Social Media”[3], found that young adults are more likely than older users to try and limit the amount of information available about them online. dannah boyd from Microsoft research presents an overview of the Pew research on her blog[4].

Youth do care about privacy 

A secondly unrelated piece of research undertaken by academics at University of California Berkley, entitled “How Different are Young Adults from Older Adults When it Comes to Information Privacy Attitudes and Policies?”[5] can be summarised in the below bullet points:

–	Young Adults vs Adults
	The study did not find significant differences between young or older adults regarding privacy, everyone seemed to be equally concerned and acknowledge it as an issue.

–	Young American were uneducated towards issues relating to privacy
	 42 percent of young Americans answered all of our five online privacy questions *incorrectly*. 88 percent answered only two or fewer correctly. The problem is even more pronounced when presented with offline privacy issues – post hoc analysis showed that young Americans were more likely to answer no questions correctly than any other age group.

– 	An Aspiration for increased Privacy
	 The report concludes that young-adult Americans have “an aspiration for increased privacy” even though they enjoy participating in social online activities. An aspiration for privacy, with a distinct lack of education with regards to the issues surrounding it.

But yeah, these are but a references pointing to research undertaken in this space. 

Mischa 

[1] http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/3848950
[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jan/11/facebook-privacy
[3] http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Reputation-Management.aspx
[4] http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2010/05/26/pew-research-confirms-that-youth-care-about-their-reputation.html
[5] http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1589864

On 16 Jul 2010, at 23:09, Melvin Carvalho wrote:

> 
> 
> On 17 July 2010 00:05, Carine Bournez <carine@w3.org> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 02:15:35PM -0400, Tom Morris wrote:
> > I agree with Christine.  I'm very concerned about privacy, but I also
> > recognize that the general population does not.
> 
> It's not true that people are not concerned about privacy, but they
> are not sufficiently aware of the risks.
> 
> Regarding risks:
> 
> Summary of additional findings:
> 
> The Webroot survey uncovered that a significant number of people have fallen prey to criminals who target social network users for attack:
> 
> Nearly a quarter of respondents (22.4 percent) were victims of a phishing attempt to steal their social network password.
> About one in six (16 percent) reported a malware infection in the past year that originated from a social networking site.
> One in nine reported at least one of their social network accounts had been compromised or hijacked.
>  
> 
> >
> > Sure, and I bet they all would say they are deeply concerned about
> > world hunger too, but the editorial (yes, it's an editorial calling
> > for more action on privacy), also says:
> >
> >   "So why are we saying one thing, but doing another when it comes to privacy?"
> >
> > and
> >
> >   "If half of us are that concerned about privacy, it should stand to
> > reason that we would do something about it. However, rather than
> > leaving these networks that cause so much concern, people continue to
> > sign up: Facebook will be announcing its 500 million user milestone
> > any day now, and Foursquare has reached 1.8 million users in its first
> > year alone."
> >
> > It's fine to say that we need to worry about privacy now so that some
> > when the general population does begin to care the appropriate
> > technologies are available, but I don't see the data to support the
> > statement that most users care in any concrete way.
> 
> You can't say that people don't care because you found 500 million
> users on facebook. There are also lots of people who are not on
> facebook and nobody asks them why. Those studies are biaised by design.
> 
> 
> 

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Mischa Tuffield PhD
Email: mischa.tuffield@garlik.com
Homepage - http://mmt.me.uk/
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