Poll: People Know Their Info Is Being Shared but Do Little About It

Morning Consult compiled data by polling 13,915 registered voters over the past four months to dig deeper into Americans’ relationship with privacy and the Internet. The polls show that while voters are wary about providing online services with their personal information, there is a limit to what they will do about it. Even so, the data shows that people don’t expect total online privacy. They will do some easy things to keep themselves out of the cyber-limelight, but not the most effective things.

Only one-fifth of respondents have used encryption apps, for example. Still, two-thirds of respondents say they have at least once decided not to use a website because it asked for too much information. That statistic remains consistent among age groups. A similar majority (78 percent) say they have cleared their “cookies” from their computers or wiped browser history so websites they visit can’t track their preferences and habits. Age doesn’t play much of a difference here either.