Forty-one percent say buying things on the Internet threatens their privacy, and 40 percent think it poses more of a privacy threat than buying by mail or in a store. However, those who have purchased something online are much less likely to have these concerns. Only about a quarter of online buyers think shopping via the Internet threatens their privacy, compared to almost half of nonbuyers. Online buyers may be reacting to uneventful Internet purchases, while concerns about privacy may be keeping some nonbuyers from shopping online. Although concern about privacy is tepid, the public overwhelmingly supports tighter restrictions on the collection and dissemination of information about them.
Internet users are a little less likely than nonusers to support legal restrictions.
Even so, an overwhelming majority of Internet users and nonusers alike, as well as big majorities in all demographic groups, support these restrictions. Though it is generally legal for companies to sell information about their customers, many have policies forbidding it. This week two companies, Chase Manhattan Bank and the e-mail service InfoBeat, reached a settlement with New York's attorney general agreeing no longer to distribute information about their customers to outside companies. Age People in the youngest and oldest age groups are less concerned about privacy. Older people are less likely to use this technology and, as a result, may feel inoculated against these types of problems.