> "The average person doesn't know it exists"
Is there any evidence to suggest the average person really cares about privacy online to such an extent?
Is there any evidence to suggest the average person really cares about privacy online to such an extent?
The evidence is that the masses don't care. They just want stuff that works and solves problems for them. Is it open source? Why would anyone (apart from a geek) care?
Same goes for free software: more casual users (probably) would use more free software if they knew about it. And the bit about it just working is mostly FUD.
The reason why the masses don't care is because they don't know why kind of havoc this sort of lack of privacy can cause. I for one am glad someone is educating the layman in an accessible and non-condescending way.
Also afaik health insurance is mainly a US phenomenon thank god.
There are lots of ways this could play out. If you go to the site and register (increasingly likely), they might be able to detect you individually. Secondly, providers are starting to line up data by email address and other personal facts, so they may be able to match you like that. But even if they aren't absolutely sure it is you, they can still use the information to put you in different initial pools that could be used, for example, to ask you more specific follow-up questions that then put you in different risk pools.
If you're endlessly searching for cancer cures, perhaps they should be aware of that.
Of course the solution is the US is universal health care for all. But that's never going to happen.
"90% of respondents said they pay little or no attention to online ads."
eg the respondents are in no way a representative sample.
It also sounds like an entirely loaded poll - eg "Would you like more ability to opt out of online tracking".... "um... yes? I guess".
There's so much FUD around the issue - "should advertising networks be allowed to target products to you based on tracking". The term 'tracking' sounds bad. It sounds like they are monitoring everything you do, when in fact they're just storing a cookie and noticing which other sites you visit that also carry ads from the same network.
But more generally, I don't know if there is any poll that would satisfy you. I've been watching you make these comments for years :).
I think generally though, a very very vocal minority make a ton of noise about privacy.
Look at adblock. If you were a newcomer to the net and just read comments here or at reddit, you'd assume everyone uses it. But the figure is more like 1 or 2% at most have adblock or similar installed.
There's this big elitist movement that supposes that only idiots click on adverts, that they only click because they're confused, that adverts are all bad and irritating. But there's no real evidence to back that up.
Nearly everyone clicks on adverts. Nearly everyone buys stuff as a result. Consumers find stuff via adverts, Sellers sell stuff via adverts. They work.
I appreciate what you're trying to do though, and hope it does pay off for you, the time is right for some google competition.
I'd be satisfied I'm wrong if adblock usage jumped to 50%+ or if more than a few thousand people used Tor or whatever the usual figure is (extremely low).
When I install/fix a machine, I always load Firefox with adblock plus due to the amount of harassing nasty ads. Being the location where I do the majority of my business, they are almost exclusively on dialup, so even a 100kb image add is literally 25 seconds extra load time.
Now, am I anti-capitalist? Not quite. I agree that someone doing work for money (be it a sole proprietor or company) has a right to 'hang their shingle'. I most certainly do. However, when I look at content, I do not want myself distracted from material that has no bearing on what I am looking at.
And yes, I full well understand that ad-click and purchase is what increases revenue for content based websites. I also know, from the many articles here, that google is THE player in this sphere, along with their multitude of complaints.
I also, control my network connection from my side. I also control my CPU, what resides in ram, what lands on my screen, and what I choose to not display. As I look at it, we have dealt with nearing 15 years of increasingly hostile ads. I'm only reacting in kind by being hostile to them. And I attribute banners and such like the 'last minute' sale grocery stores attempt by putting candy in the checkout lane.
Yes, I do know that my viewpoint is a minority. But I also recommend goods and services to others. So, yeah, don't abuse us and we'll pass on the sales.
Just to play devil's advocate, but wouldn't targetted ads be more preferable then, since they WOULD have a bearing on what you're looking at?
99% of the time im on the internet, I am NOT going to buy stuff. I'm going to forums that I attend, getting email, working to help that ubuntu works better (by bug reports and fixes), and researching on more stuff that I can do in IT
And as we all know, there are absolutely no adverts to do with that.
My observation is that more than 90% computer users don't have a clue. They don't know how computers work, what they store, and what they send. I've even seen computer engineering students that don't know that Gmail does semantic analysis on their e-mail, despite the presence of targeted ads and a very good spam filter.
Now, of the 10% who do have a clue, most don't know the exact nature of each threat to their privacy. They just know they are being watched by Big Profitable Companies that sell each other their data. They don't always know that they can protect themselves from some of those threats, let alone how. Even when they do, it requires some effort up-front, and the benefits tend to be long-term and invisible.
Therefore, the extremely low percentage of people who use adblock, noscript, Tor or whatever isn't the result of most people doing a rational cost-benefit evaluation based on informed opinions about privacy on the internet. Indeed, I suspect that among those who do an informed opinion, very few have deliberately chosen not to use privacy helpers like adblock, noscript, or Tor.
My comment isn't that people have an informed opinion about privacy, more that it's a moot point to them. It's like asking them their opinion on a new fuel injection component.
Users rightly assume that their personal details will be kept securely by any website they give them to.
> " Indeed, I suspect that among those who do an informed opinion, very few have deliberately chosen not to use privacy helpers like adblock, noscript, or Tor"
BS. Try using tor for a day. It's useless, ridiculously slow, and means things don't work properly. Also I tried adblock for a day, and I hated it. I want to see the internet uncensored. If a website pisses me off with popup ads, I'll just not go there again. I think that's pretty typical behavior. NoScript is an even stupider idea. Who in their right mind would disable javascript? Pretty much all websites will be broken. The only people who would install noscript are the analy OCD afflicted control freaks.
> BS
Ah, that is a meaningful disagreement. Well, you've just treated me of an OCD afflicted control freak, along with Eben Moglen. :-) By the way, the majority of the web site I go to (mostly from HN), work like charms, and I don't often have to enable Javascript. Tor doesn't work, true, and that's why I intend to run an exit node very soon. It'll be a drop in the ocean, but we gotta start somewhere. I liked Adblock while I used it, but animated ads stopped bothering me since NoScript.
Most people (in North America anyway) don't appear to care much about their health, either... that is, until they are diagnosed with cancer or suffer a heart attack.