It would seem that no matter would the industry does to help deal with online privacy, people are increasingly resigning themselves to believe that privacy on the internet is “impossible.” Because of this, users could permanently change their behavior and share less online.
This is the key finding in a new survey of more than 4,000 adults in the US and UK conducted FigLeaf.
When the respondents were asked whether or not Cambridge Analytica and other data and privacy scandals had impacted their online behavior, an overwhelming 78% of them said yes. 74% said that they are sharing less information online. Those respondents whose behavior hasn’t changed, it was found that “they were already highly protective of their information, or that they had accepted a lack of privacy when engaging online.”
A major finding, according to the survey, is the shift in perceptions of whether privacy is even possible online. Compared to the survey from a year ago, an overwhelming number of consumers in both the US and UK believe not. Respondents who believe that “online privacy is possible” have heavily declined from 61% in 2018 to 32% in 2019.
According to 75% of the respondents in the 2018 survey, the government was primarily responsible for online privacy. in 2019, that number went down to an abysmal 6%, with 48% of respondents saying that online privacy is a share responsibility among companies, government, and the individual, all of whom the data is shared. Another 28$ feels that online privacy was primarily the responsibility of the individual.