世論 What Japan Thinks

Sometimes I present surveys that are difficult to believe, and this is one of these cases, a look at software licences by goo Research and rported on by japan.internet.com, where almost one in three who are aware of licences and have installed software in the last year claimed to usually or always read the accompanying licence!

Demographics

Between the 5th and 9th of October 2010 1,093 members of the goo Research online monitor goup completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were male, 16.6% in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 12.1% aged sixty or older.

I am surprised that so many do – it’s just one more click-through for me. Only if I am downloading software that tries to force a spammy toolbar install do I check the licence to see if it mentioned anything about data collection.

Research results

Q1: Do you know what a software licence is? (Sample size=1,093)

Yes (to SQ1)	73.2% 80
No	26.8%

Q1SQ1: Have you installed software within the last year? (Sample size=800)

Yes (to SQ2)	71.4%
No	21.5%
Don’t know	7.1%

Q1SQ2: Did any of the software you installed have a software licence? (Sample size=571)

Yes (to SQ3)	96.5%
No	3.5%

Q1SQ3: Did you read these software licences? (Sample size=551)

Read every time	8.9%
Usually read	23.2%
Usually don’t read	53.0%
Never read	14.5%
Forgotten	0.4%