世論 What Japan Thinks

japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey by goo Research into revealing personal information on the internet where people other than friends can read it. In the middle of October 1,052 of goo’s monitor pool successfully completed a private web-based questionnaire. 56.4% of the sample was female, and 2.5% in their teens, 22.0% in their twenties, 42.7% in their thirties, 23.7% in their forties, and 9.2% in their fifties. Regular readers may remember a previous survey on a similar subject showing that over 90% of bloggers were anonymous.

Although the survey’s main theme is about the online world, the first two questions presented in the summary report actually refer to issues regarding real-world businesses. It seems odd to me that people are twice as wary of giving out their date of birth over the internet than in real life.

Personally, I feel reluctant to revealing my email address in particular, as I’m never sure what spam I’ll end up with, and a lot of Japanese companies, even reputable ones, do not provide simple one-click unsubscribe options.

Q1: Do you feel resistance to disclosing personal information in order to get service from shops or companies? (Sample size=1,052)

Usually (to SQ)	18.5%
Sometimes (to SQ)	64.9%
Not much (to SQ)	15.2%
Not at all	1.2%
Never registered personal information	0.1%

Q1SQ: What sort of personal information do you feel resistance to disclosing in order to get service from shops or companies? (Sample size=1,038, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Credit card or bank account details	982	94.6%
Photograph	817	78.7%
Fixed phone number	734	70.7%
Address	703	67.7%
Mobile phone number	682	65.7%
Salary	645	62.1%
Mobile phone email address	510	49.1%
Name	490	47.2%
Marital status	488	47.0%
Activity history	474	45.7%
PC email address	467	45.0%
Date of birth	453	43.6%
Purchase history	435	41.9%
Education or place of work details	426	41.0%
Age	265	25.5%
Hobbies or likes	173	16.7%
Other	6	0.6%
Nothing in particular	3	0.3%

In addition, a similar question was posed regarding online services, and mail address came out on top with 976 people reluctant to give it out. Next was one’s name with 964 votes, address with 960, date of birth with 943, then fixed line phone number at 894.

Next, people were asked where, outside of shopping sites, they had entered personal information. The top answer was at Social Networking Services, SNS, with 224 people doing so. Next was blogs with 123 people, personal home pages at 97, other community sites with 68, bulletin boards with 30, and 14 people at each of schedule and photo management services.

Q2: Currently, what personal information is available to people other than friends about you on the web? (Sample size=1,052)

	Votes	Percentage
PC email address	128	12.2%
Hobbies or likes	117	11.1%
Age	114	10.8%
Date of birth	112	10.6%
Name	102	9.7%
Education or place of work details	74	7.0%
Marital status	47	4.5%
Photograph	38	3.6%
Address	27	2.6%
Fixed phone number	25	2.4%
Purchase history	33	3.1%
Activity history	22	2.1%
Salary	11	1.0%
Photograph of friends	10	1.0%
Mobile phone number	10	1.0%
Mobile phone email address	8	0.8%
Credit card or bank account details	4	0.4%
Other	5	0.5%
Nothing in particular	760	72.2%