Survey Exposes Alarming , Knowledge Gap Among Americans , on Online Privacy.
'The New York Times' reports that most Americans struggled to answer a series of true-or-false questions about how their devices and online services track them.
The survey by the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania tested people's knowledge of how apps, websites and devices collect data.
That data includes health information, TV-viewing habits and doorbell camera videos.
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77% of respondents reportedly got nine or fewer of the 17 true-or-false questions right, receiving a failing grade.
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Just one respondent managed to answer 16 of the questions correctly, while no one was able to answer all of the questions correctly.
'NYT' reports that the results of the survey expose a wide knowledge gap among Americans as the Federal Trade Commission prepares to curb "commercial surveillance.".
The "notice and consent" approach allows online services to collect, use, retain, share and sell a vast amount of consumer data, provided users consent to it.
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The recent report adds to a growing number of studies that suggest the notice-and-consent approach has become obsolete.
According to regulators and researchers alike, apps and sites often use long and sometimes confusing privacy policies to trick people into agreeing to be tracked.
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Consent requires that people have knowledge about commercial data- extraction practices as well as a belief they can do something about them.
Americans have neither, The Annenberg School report, via 'The New York Times'
