A study by Chris Hoofnagle was in the news last week because it suggests that young people do care about privacy more than some other studies or Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook would have us believe. Dan Solove comments on another aspect of the study:
People believe that privacy violations should be punished — and quite stringently. There are interesting survey results in a new report by Chris Hoofnagle, Jennifer King, Su Li, and Joseph Turow, How Different are Young Adults from Older Adults When it Comes to Information Privacy Attitudes and Policies?
The report focuses primarily on comparing the attitudes of the young with older people and concluding that there isn’t much of a divergence. I blogged about it here.
There is other data in the report worth talking about that I fear will be lost in the headlines about how the young are similar to the old. And this data is quite interesting:
“If a company purchases or uses someone’s personal information illegally, about how much—if anything—do you think that company should be fined?”
The vast majority of people of all ages (69%) said the fine should be greater than $2500. They were given choices of $100, $500, $1000, $2500, and more than $2500.
Read more on Concurring Opinions.
Elsewhere on the Co-Op blog, Dan has a quick round-up of privacy cases before the Supreme Court, here.