Half of online Americans don’t know what a privacy policy is
What is a privacy policy?
When Pew Research Center asked about this on a recent survey measuring public knowledge of technology and the web, we found that it was one that many Americans answered incorrectly. Our true/false statement question asked, "When a company posts a privacy policy, it ensures that the company keeps confidential all the information it collects on users." Some 52% of internet users believe — incorrectly — that this statement is true, and that privacy policies actually ensure the confidentiality of their personal information. (In fact, a privacy policy is simply a legal document that discloses how customer data is managed and used.) Just 44% correctly identified this statement as false, and 3% chose not to answer the question.