According to a study conducted by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by ProtectMyID.com, the vast majority of social media users express concern about their privacy, but many neglect to take simple steps toward protecting themselves online.
More than 80 percent of respondents to the study conveyed concern about their security while using social media, but more than half of this concerned group confessed that they don’t take any steps to do anything about it.
About 65 percent of users don’t set high privacy or security settings in their social media sites; more than 90 percent don’t review a given site’s privacy policy before using it; about 40 percent share their home address via these social media platforms; and those who have been victims of identity theft are just as likely to be slipshod about protecting themselves as those who haven’t had the pleasure of getting their identity stolen.
“I was surprised that those who had experienced identity theft in the past weren’t taking stronger measures to protect their identity,” said Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute. “No matter who you are, if you want to increase social networking safety, you must take the necessary steps to protect your information.”
Part of the reason for the lack of action is probably due to the finding that nearly 90 percent of respondents didn’t think identity theft was likely on social media sites.
More than 60 percent of users are not confident or unsure of their social media provider’s ability to protect their identity; about 44 percent said if they found that a social media provider didn’t do a good job of protecting their security or privacy, they would still use the site; and almost 60 percent are not confident or unsure that their circle of online social media friends includes people they know and can trust.
These findings have extra thrust in the afterglow of Facebook’s recent, very public privacy troubles. Last week, 10 privacy groups wrote a letter to Facebook, requesting that the site make six privacy-related changes to the site to give users more control of their personal information.
These measures were: to enable users to decide which applications can access personal information, make instant personalization opt-in by default, cease retaining data from social plug-ins (i.e., the “Like” button), give users control over what they share, use https:// by default, and provide users with simple tools to export content and connections from the site.
Though Facebook thoroughly expressed their disdain for the public letter, it said it would work with the 10 groups, and others, to iron out privacy issues.
Sources:
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20100621005370&newsLang=en
http://searchenginewatch.com/3640703
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2365191,00.asp
http://www.pcworld.com/article/199287/facebook_chides_privacy_coalition_over_open_letter.html?tk=hp_new
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