世論 What Japan Thinks

A recent survey from goo Research into mobile phone location services, ie, these functions like foursquare, Google Latitude, and Facebook location was reported on (and sponsored by?) by AdverTimes.

Demographics

Sadly, to find out the full demographics I suspect one has to buy their paper magazine Senden Kaigi, which in their 15th May 2012 edition featured an article entitled “Consumer Psychology in the SNS-facilitated mutual surveillance society”, of which this report is a digest. In Q1, the 2008 survey was carried out in December of that year with 2,077 respondents, and this year’s survey was in April with 2,214 respondents, all from the usual goo Research online monitor panel.

I’m reluctant to check in when out and about in town – I’ve only attached location information to photos when I’ve been passing through commuting home; there was an interesting article a while ago about someone in Tokyo who used that sort of public information plus Twitter to find two people in real time through their mobile presence.

I wonder what the reasons are for smartphone users being more likely to reveal information – is it that smartphone apps make it easy and fun to do, or is it that the people who want to reveal information tend to use smartphones? Perhaps if one buys the magazine one can find out!

Research results

Q1A: To what degree do you feel reluctant to reveal information through check-in services?

Location information

	2008	2012
At shop X doing Y	2%	3%
At shop X	9%	14%
In district X	22%	24%
In town X, in city X	30%	22%
Reluctant to reveal any location information	37%	37%

Frequency of updating information

	2008	2012
Real time	5%	8%
Once a minute	2%	2%
Once every five minutes	8%	7%
Once an hour	20%	20%
Once a day	23%	23%
Reluctant to reveal any temporal information	39%	40%

Q1B: To what degree do you feel reluctant to reveal information through check-in services?

Location information

	Feature phone	Smartphone
At shop X doing Y	3%	5%
At shop X	12%	19%
In district X	24%	25%
In town X, in city X	21%	24%
Reluctant to reveal any location information	40%	27%

Frequency of updating information

	Feature phone	Smartphone
Real time	7%	11%
Once a minute	1%	2%
Once every five inutes	7%	7%
Once an hour	19%	22%
Once a day	22%	27%
Reluctant to reveal any temporal information	44%	30%

Q2: What kinds of companies would you allow to use your history of check-in service usage? (Multiple answer)

Company with privacy protection certification	42.4%
Company with information security certification	36.8%
Company with displayed privacy policy	29.3%
Brand-name company	18.9%
Company, shop that offers points, air miles, etc	15.3%
Company, shop I often use	14.6%
Technically-skilled company	11.5%
A company with planning ability	7.4%
Would not permit any	34.9%
Other	0.3%

Q3: What sort of rewards would you want for checking in at a shop? (Multiple answer)

Discount coupon to use at that shop	53.4%
Points, etc that can be used at other unaffiliated shops	36.4%
Points, shopping voucher, etc for use at that chain	31.7%
One percent extra cash back for buying with a credit card	21.2%
Information about events at that shop	9.2%
Don’t want to check in to shops	26.0%