Data pick of the day: 58% users worried about online privacy
Globally, 58 per cent of the online population now agrees that they are concerned about the internet eroding their personal privacy, which is up from 48 per cent in 2010. Also, this is an attitude that cuts across demographics, being felt by virtually all groups in equal measure.
People are not just talking the talk here, though; significant minorities are taking pro-active and evasive actions to protect their privacy and avoid being tracked.
Over a quarter of internet users say they’ve gone online using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) or Proxy Server, for example, a figure that translates to more than 420 million people aged between 16-64 across the 32 countries surveyed by Global Web Index. This is Generation V, nearly three in ten of whom say they’re turning to VPNs in order to “keep my anonymity while browsing”.
Elsewhere, nearly half of the internet users GWI surveyed said that they’ve used a private browsing window. More than three quarters say that at some point they have deleted cookies from their computer so that websites will not remember them. Some three in ten have used an ad-blocking service in the last month, and two in ten have deployed anti-tracking tools.
While none of these tools are mainstream, it’s still the case that a weighty chunk of the online population is becoming and wants to become increasingly hidden from view. They’re the “forgotten” internet users determined to shield their details and activities from media providers and advertisers alike. For any brand or marketer out there, this is a trend that’s going to make it increasingly difficult to capture full and accurate views of online audiences.
