On the one hand, respondents to this year’s Consumers & Convergence survey express greater concern than ever over the privacy of their personal information. This year, nearly eight out of ten global consumers (79 percent) said they were concerned about unauthorized access to personally identifiable information. This represented a six to eight percentage point increase over the 2008 findings for specific privacy threats and it was consistent across regions and across age groups.
On the other hand, consumers appear more willing than ever to allow their personal information to be tracked. This year, nearly six in ten (58 percent) said they would be willing to allow their online usage and personal profile information to be tracked if it resulted in lower costs, an increase of eight percentage points from 2008.
“Compared with our last survey, which used data from late 2008, the 2010 survey shows conclusively that the mobile internet is rapidly opening up an entirely new global marketplace,” says Gary Matuszak, KPMG”s Global Chair for Information, Communications & Entertainment. “We have found that people are increasingly willing to pay for high value content. Organizations that can provide high quality material in an imaginative and user-friendly way will be able to generate significant revenues.
“But the twin perceptions of inadequate privacy and poor security are definitely uppermost in consumers’ minds, and may be holding back the further development of the internet as a commercial tool. Consumers around the world see solving these issues as a joint responsibility of service providers, who should improve systems and be more transparent in their reporting on security matters, and governments, who should introduce tougher privacy and security regulations.”