Politech: FC: ACT poll of 1,001 voters says no new privacy laws, please

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

*********

Subject: Public's True Privacy Concerns
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 14:51:34 -0400
From: "Jonathan Zuck" <jzuck () actonline org>
To: "Declan McCullagh" <declan () well com>

          Declan,
          There is a growing disparity on capitol hill between those
who seek to protect people from the decisions they make and those
          who seek to preserve their ability to make them. We thought
this poll on the public's real thoughts on privacy regulation would
          be instructive to Politech readers. As is the case with a great
many of your readers, we favor protecting Americans from decisions
          they can't make (i.e. sharing information with the goverment)
but seek to preserve the decisions they ARE able to make. Privacy
          is a great example.

        ACT's poll which called 1001 registered voters nationwide was
designed to go beyond the superficial question of whether consumers feel
if privacy is important.  The purpose of the poll was to drill down to
find out specifically what privacy related issues are of concern and how
these concerns should be addressed.

        It is clear from the consumer responses that they are indeed
savvy with respect to how to protect their privacy.

        Some topline conclusions:

        1. People are indeed concerned about protecting their personal
information, but when asked for specific privacy concerns, they're all over
the map(identity theft, government abuse, spam, porn)
        2. they don't think laws should treat online privacy differently
than offline privacy.
        3. they prefer enforcement of existing laws over creating new
laws.
        4. they want federal laws instead of state laws.
        5. they do pay attention to privacy policies when they shop
online.
        6. some cited specific abuses of online information.  When asked
for  specifics, they cite spam, credit card fraud, and identity
theft.

        The study materials are available on ACT's web site:
http://www.actonline.org/issues/privacypoll.asp

        Jonathan Zuck

        President

        Association for Competitive Technology

	jzuck () actonline org <mailto:jzuck () actonline org> 



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