This privacy survey’s questions would make for a killer “Would You Rather” game. Which of the following groups’ possession of your personal data would be more nauseating: the NSA, Google, your boss, or your parents?
Rating the horror-factor on a scale of 1 to 10, the survey from Survata found that Google was the most-feared, followed closely by the NSA.
Going down the list, people would rather their spouse see their web history than their parents, and rather their parents than their bosses.
CNET displayed mild skepticism of Survata’s methodology—they block access to website content, and ask web-users to respond to questions, supposedly with some vetting involved. They also note that over half of the respondents were between 13 and 24 years old–curious, given that the majority of young people support Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks, and rely on Google to do just about everything.
A 2013 Pew/Washington Post survey did find that a surprisingly large amount of Americans are OK with abandoning their online and phone records to the NSA. 56 percent said that the NSA’s secret court orders to track phone records were acceptable, and a stunning 45 percent said that the federal government should be able to monitor everyone’s online activity, including emails, if it could prevent future terrorist attacks.
