Survey: Edge Needs to Better Protect Privacy

Three quarters of respondents want Big Tech—Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter—to do more to protect their privacy.

That is according to a Morning Consult poll released by the Internet Innovation Alliance on the same day the Senate Consumer Protection Subcommittee was looking at the same issue in an oversight hearing with the Federal Trade Commission.

Related: Cruz Says Big Tech Needs Reining In

Only 10% of those polled said those companies were doing enough to protect user privacy.

In addition, a strong majority (79%) said that they supported new online data collection and use regs applying to edge and ISPs alike and 41% say Congress should pass legislation protecting an open internet and privacy that apply to all companies versus 6% who say the status quo is fine.

Other options were to enact privacy and data rules on social media platforms and search engines (18%) and enact net neutrality regs on ISPs (17%).

Finally, a majority (53%) favor federal privacy and net neutrality regs over states passing their own laws (23%). The study was of 1,947 registered voters polled Oct. 26-28. The margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.