Online Shoppers Fear Identity Theft
Surveys show e-shoppers like the convenience, but are wary of online fraud.
Nancy Gohring, IDG News Service
Most online shoppers say they'll take their business elsewhere if they find out their personal information was compromised, according to two recent surveys of U.S. Internet users. The results show that consumers are aware of identity theft and that companies are likely to lose business if they fail to handle customer information securely.
According to a survey of more than 2000 adults across the U.S., two-thirds of them expect to shop online this holiday season, with 14 percent of them planning to do half or more of their holiday shopping online. But 67 percent of Internet users who were part of the study said they were likely to stop shopping at an online store if they found out that their personal information was compromised.
Half of the respondents said they were likely to switch financial institutions if they found out that their personal data stored by the bank had been compromised.
This research was commissioned by Sun Microsystems and carried out by Harris Interactive.
Similar Sentiments
The findings were echoed in a similar survey by Forrester Custom Consumer Research commissioned by the Business Software Alliance. That survey of 1099 U.S. customers found their major concern was that their personal information will be sold to a third party, followed by identity theft (74 percent). Consumers were also worried about spam, credit card fraud, and computer viruses, the survey found.
In fact, that survey suggests one in four U.S. consumers won't shop online during the upcoming holiday season because of concerns over buying goods online.
Users are turning to technology to fight against some potential online annoyances like spyware and spam. Just over four out of five reported they are running anti-virus software (81 percent) while levels were lower for anti-spyware software (67 percent), e-mail filtering/spam blocker software (65 percent), and firewalls (63 percent).
Almost three quarters of users are concerned about buying and selling goods through online auction services, the BSA reported.
Aware of Risk
An increasing awareness of identity theft may be driving these Internet users to say they'll change their behavior if their personal information is threatened, the Harris survey suggests.
Thirty-four percent of those surveyed said they'd either been a victim of identity theft or they know someone who has been a victim. Eighty-three percent said they think people are more likely to become victims of identity fraud around the holidays.
Sun warned that consumers should be careful when releasing information such as Social Security Numbers and said that companies need to mitigate the risk of identity threat by employing security mechanisms.
Martyn Williams of the IDG News Service contributed to this report
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