Survey Shows Consumer Concern About Cloud Services Is Nothing New

PRESS RELEASE

SAN JOSE, Calif. – June 25, 2013 – A recent F-Secure survey shows that even before PRISM news broke, six out of 10 consumers were concerned about the security of storing their content in social networking and cloud storage services. F-Secure's Digital Lifestyle Survey 2013, which interviewed 6,000 people in 15 countries in April,* found younger people and multi-screeners to be more concerned than others.

According to the survey, the top five providers people upload their content to include Facebook, YouTube, Google Drive, Dropbox, and Microsoft SkyDrive and Apple iCloud, tied up for fifth place. But results show that uploading content to social networking services and cloud storage providers doesn't necessarily equal confidence in them.

Case in point, 59% of consumers expressed concern that someone else may be able to access content they store with these providers. Furthermore, 60% were concerned that providers may be selling their personal content to third parties, and 62% thought that providers may sell their digital behavior data. Additionally, 63% were worried about the vulnerability of storage providers' technology. European countries, with the exception of France, showed generally lower levels of concern than other countries; for example, in the US 69% were concerned about unauthorized access to their content, while in Germany it was 52% and in Italy 61% were, with Brazil taking the lead at 78%.

People between the ages of 20 to 30 showed the most concern, and those ages 50 to 60 slightly less. People who reported using multiple screens at the same time also appeared to be more concerned than those who mostly use one screen at a time. These more concerned groups were also the ones who use cloud services more.