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Survey Says: People Would Rather Hand Their Data Over To NSA Than This Company

Giuseppe Macri Tech Editor
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Data privacy has been a growing concern among internet users across the globe since revelations of bulk government spying hit new heights last year, but according to a new survey, most would still rather hand their information over to the NSA than Silicon Valley’s biggest data cruncher.

On a scale of 1 to 10 (the latter indicating “I would be extremely upset”), 2,500 respondents of a Survata survey asking how upset they would be if certain parties accessed their private data (including “web history, downloads, cell phone data, etc.”) answered they would be more upset with Google (7.39) than NSA (7.06).

Bosses came in third place at 6.85, parents in fourth with 5.93 and spouses or significant others last at 4.55.

According to CNET, respondents were aged 13-44 and half were 24 or younger. Of those, 59.8 percent were female and 40.2 percent male.

“Survata was surprised to see respondents said they’d be more upset with a company like Google seeing their personal data than the NSA,” Survata co-founder Chris Kelly said in the report. “We did not ask respondents for the reasons or motivations behind their answers; so we can only conjecture based on our previous research. One guess is that respondents assume the NSA is only looking for ‘guilty’ persons when scouring personal data, whereas a company like Google would use personal data to serve ads or improve their own products.”

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Tags : google nsa
Giuseppe Macri