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Wednesday, June 01, 2005
How Savvy Are You About Your Online Security?
U.S. Internet users are dangerously ignorant about the types of data that Web site owners collect from them and how that data is used, a new study has found.
For the study, titled “Open to Exploitation: American Shoppers Online and Offline” and released today, 1500 adult U.S. Internet users were asked true-or-false questions about topics such as Web site privacy policies and retailers’ pricing schemes.
Most respondents failed the test, correctly answering, on average, 6.7 of the 17 questions. 75 percent of respondents wrongly believe that if a Web site has a privacy policy, it will not share their information with third parties.
Almost half of respondents (49 percent) can’t identify “phishing” scam e-mail messages, which information thieves dress up to look as though they came from a legitimate company, such as a bank or store, to lure users into entering sensitive information.
62 percent of respondents don’t know that an online store can simultaneously charge different prices for the same item based on information it has on different shoppers—a practice that can make users victims of what the study’s authors call “price discrimination.”
To address the problems identified in the study, the Annenberg Public Policy Center is proposing three measures.