Consumer Awareness of Privacy Issues on the Internet Survey Findings

Prepared by WATConsult August 2012

Privileged and Confidential

Research Objective & Methodology

Online survey conducted on pan-India basis

Robust sample of 600 respondents

• Diverse background: age, gender and cities

• Diverse internet users: Search, Social Media, Blogs & E-commerce enthusiasts

Survey among active internet users

Study Objective: To test consumer awareness of privacy issues on the internet

Methodology

Total Sample - 600 respondents

18-25 74%

26-35 20%

36-45 4%

46-54 1% 55+

1%

Age Group

Male 91%

Female 9%

Gender

Internet Usage Characteristics

Less than

once a week

3%

Once a week

2%

2-4 times a week

7%

5-7 times a week 10%

More than 7 times a

week 78%

How often do people use internet?

Less than 1 hour

13%

1-3 hours 39% 3-5 hours

17%

More than 5 hours 31%

Average time spent on internet in one sitting

More than two-thirds of the respondents use the internet more than 7 times per week

Popular Services on Internet

96%

44%

15%

79%

93%

42%

23% 34% 34%

18% 23% 11%

84%

55%

25% 24% 29%

13%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Services people use on internet

• Google Search (96%), Facebook (93%), Gmail (84%) and YouTube (79%) are the most popular services on internet • Of the top four popular services, three belong to Google

User Awareness Internet Services/Platforms

0

20

40

60

80

100

Google Search

Youtube Google Plus

Orkut Blogspot Gmail Picasa Chrome Android

Which company offers each of the following services?

No Response

Don't Know

None of these

Microsoft

Yahoo

Google

Awareness about Google’s products and services (in %)

Users are generally aware of Google’s offerings on the internet. Their awareness quotient is low about Blogspot, Android and Picasa

0

20

40

60

80

100

Bing Windows Live

Hotmail Internet Explorer

Windows Phone

Which company offers each of the following services?

No Response

Don't Know

None of these

Microsoft

Yahoo

Google

Awareness about Microsoft products (in %)

Around 10-13% of respondents feel these services are owned by Google More than half answered incorrectly in the case of Bing

0

20

40

60

80

100

Yahoo Search Yahoo Mail Flickr

Which company offers each of the following services?

No Response

Don't Know

None of these

Microsoft

Yahoo

Google

Awareness about Yahoo products (in %)

• As evident from the first name, over 80% of the respondents answered correctly in the case of Yahoo Search &Yahoo Mail • Majority of the respondents were not aware about the company that owns Flickr; where only 23% answered it correctly and 19% thought it is being offered by Google

0.0

20.0

40.0

60.0

80.0

100.0

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Wordpress Rediffmail iPhone

Which company offers each of the following services?

Don't Know

None of these

Microsoft

Yahoo

Google

Awareness about Other products and services (in %)

Consumer awareness on popular products and services , other than those

offered by Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, is found to be comparatively low

Personal Data Collection and Sharing

Yes 56%

No 23%

Don’t Know 19%

No Response

2%

Do you feel these companies use profile and information of users for commercial

purposes?

Users’ perceptions about Personal Information Building & Usage

86% 50%

21% 16% 19% 20%

Facebook

Google

Yahoo

Microsoft

LinkedIn

Twitter

Which internet sites you think can build the most detailed personal profile of its

users?

42% -

grey area

Yes 22%

No 66%

Doesn’t Matter

8%

No Response

4%

Would you be comfortable sharing your personal information to any third party,

without knowing the end-use of the shared information?

Of the 86% (516) respondents who think

Facebook builds their detailed profiles, 93%

(481) still don’t mind using it

Of the total 50% (300) of respondents who

believe that Google builds the most detailed

profile of its users, almost all of them (99%)

continue to use it

Users’ preferences

Yes 79%

No 16%

No Response

5%

Do you feel that websites should provide adequate explanation on how they

intend to use your personal information?

Yes 75%

No 19%

No Response

6%

Should consumers be able to opt-out of data collection for a particular internet

service?

More than three-fourth of the users want to have:

o Access to adequate information on the way websites use their personal data

o Power to opt out of data collection

Yes 63%

No 32%

No Response 5%

Would you be less likely to use a particular website/web browser that had been in the press

for violating consumer privacy ?

Most of the users are less likely to use a particular website/web browser which is

under dispute for violation of privacy

Privacy Policies

• Google's new unified privacy policy was unveiled on March 1, 2012.

• Google consolidated 60 privacy policies of its individual products into one including YouTube, Gmail and its social network Google+

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Google’s Privacy Policy

Whenever a user logs in, Google will combine all the information it

has gathered about him/her into an omnibus profile: based on friends'

lists, contact details, location, likes and dislikes, Gmail content and

calendar, and automatically share it interchangeably among its

products

What it means

• The European Union, the US, Japan and Brazil are scrutinizing and demanding a withdrawal or an amendment of this policy.

• Indian government yet to come up with an official line on the new policy

What it collects

Users’ personal information while registration; usage of services

(what, when and how); device information (such as hardware

model, operating system version, unique device identifiers, and

mobile network information including phone number); log

information (information collected in Google’s server logs while

users use their services – search queries, IP address, cookies);

location information;

• Facebook’s ‘Data Use Policy’ makes disclosures about how users can use Facebook to share information with others and how Facebook collects and can use their content and information.

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Facebook’s Privacy Policy

• Facebook uses information in connection with the services and features it provides to its users, partners, advertisers (that purchase ads on the site) and developers that build games, applications, and websites

What it collects

Users’ personal information while registration; information

that users share – status updates, photos, comments; users’

interactions with Facebook - when users look at another

person's timeline, send or receive a message, search for a

friend or a Page, use a Facebook mobile app, or purchase

Facebook Credits or make other purchases through Facebook;

device information (computer, mobile phone or other device,

IP address, internet service, location, browser, pages visited)

• Microsoft has separate privacy statements for its products and services: – Search: Bing – Microsoft.com/Microsoft websites: MSN – Other Products:IE8, Microsoft Office,

Skype etc. (each has a separate privacy policy)

• In order to offer the user a personalized experience, information collected through one Microsoft service may be combined with information obtained through other Microsoft services.

• Under its overarching privacy framework, the company collects user information such as e-mail addresses, home or work address, or telephone number, demographic information, such as ZIP code, age, gender, preferences, interests and favourites, IP address, internet access times, referring web site addresses, pages viewed, links clicked.

• There hasn’t been any significant change in company’s privacy policy in the last 6 months.

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Microsoft’s & Yahoo’s Privacy Policy

• Yahoo’s Privacy Policy details about what information is being collected, used and how and when it is shared.

• Yahoo collects personal information such as name, email address, birth date, gender, occupation, industry, and personal interests, home and work address, information on assets, transactions done with yahoo owned businesses and its business partners, IP address, cookie information, software and hardware attributes

• The privacy site also carries information about Yahoo’s privacy practices for its wide range of products and services. For instance, in the case of Yahoo search, it discloses that it has integrated its search and sponsored search services with Microsoft, whereby Yahoo shares with Microsoft - user’s search query, IP address, anonymous information from his/her web browser and other anonymous data (such as demographics including gender and age).

• Microsoft uses this information for search product improvement, research and analysis, to provide more relevant search results and search advertising, and to help detect and defend against fraudulent activity on sponsored search results.

• There hasn’t been any significant change in company’s privacy policy in the last 6 months.

MICROSOFT YAHOO

Perceptions on Importance of Privacy Policies

Very Important

81%

Somewhat Important

13%

Not At All Important

3%

No Response

3%

How important is it to you that a website has a privacy policy?

Even though 94% of users feel its important that websites have a privacy policy, only

66% generally read it

Yes 66%

No 29%

No Response

5%

Do you read privacy statements and policies before you register on

a website or give any personal information?

Survey Responses

Knowledge to Protect Privacy on the internet

Yes 60%

No 34%

No Response

6%

Do you feel that you have sufficient knowledge about how to protect your privacy on the

internet?

57% 35% 35%

41% 65% 65%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Google Yahoo Microsoft

Are you aware of any changes in privacy policies that took place in the past six months of the following internet companies

No

Yes

Awareness on Changes in Privacy Policies

Awareness & Understanding of Changes in Google’s Privacy Policy

Yes 57%

No 41%

No Response

2%

Are you aware of any changes in privacy policies that took place in the past six months on Google?

Of the 57% (341) respondents aware of the changes

81% (277) read it

61% claimed that they DID NOT understand it

Figures in parenthesis denotes actual number of respondents

Search Engine Privacy

Most Popular Internet Search Engine

90.8

2.7 0.8 0.5 5.2

Google Yahoo Search

Ask Bing Others

0

20

40

60

80

100

What Internet search engine do you use the most? (in %) Google Search

remains the most preferred search engine

The other search engines mentioned by respondents include Facebook, Flipora among others

Awareness on Google Search Privacy Policy

600 545 (91% of 600)

332 (61% of

545) 275

(83% of 332

or 51% of

Google search

users (545)

Total

Respondents Google Search

Users

Read Google’s

Privacy Policy

Claimed that

they

understood

Google’s

Privacy Policy

•Only half of Google search users claim that they have understood its privacy policy

•79% of Google search users believe that Google records their search queries

No. of respondents

Awareness on Yahoo Search and Bing Privacy Policy

600

16

Total

Respondents

Yahoo Search

Users

Read Yahoo

Search’s

Privacy Policy

Claimed that they

understood Yahoo

Search’s Privacy

Policy

No. of respondents

9 8

600

3

Total

Respondents Bing Users Read Bing’s

Privacy Policy

Claimed that they

understood Bing’s

Privacy Policy

Yahoo

Search

Bing

2 2

Sharing of Search History with third parties

Yes 17%

No 65%

Doesn’t Matter 12%

No Response 6%

Would you want your search history to become public or available to a third party?

Around two-third of respondents are not comfortable sharing their search

history with third parties

Awareness on Cookies

Awareness on Cookies

Yes 71%

No 21%

No Response

8%

Do you know what cookies are?

53%

34%

23%

25%

16%

Web Browsing Habits

Personal Information – name, age, gender, location

Sensitive Information – bank account, credit card details

Network Traffic

Don't know

Are you aware of what information cookies track?

Willingness to Block Cookies

Yes 65%

No 27%

No Response

8%

Assuming that cookies can track all of the options above, would you want to be able to block cookies?

Most of the users are skeptical sharing their personal information on the net

and are more likely to block cookies

Yes 74%

No 20%

No Response

6%

Would you want to be able to block cookies from tracking certain types

of information?

Key Conclusions

Online Privacy is a huge issue among internet users

• More than three-fourth of the users want to have:

o Access to adequate information on the way websites use their personal data

o Power to opt out of data collection

• Over 40% of users are NOT AWARE that internet companies use their personal information for commercial purposes

• Over one-third of users have not read the privacy policies of the websites that they use and those that have read , do not always understand them fully

AP Shah Committee on Privacy Law 9 National Privacy Principles Recommended

1. Notice 2. Choice and

Consent 3. Collection

Limitation 4. Purpose

Limitation

5. Access and Correction

6. Disclosure of Information

7. Security 8. Openness 9. Accountability

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THANK YOU!