A recent report from Open Xchange has found that one in five people have tried and then shut down one or more of their social media accounts. The research was commissioned due to the CEO of Open Xchange regularly finding people that are quite rightly worried about the data being collected on them. Some of those people have even gone so far as to stop using certain online services and apps as well as closing accounts down completely.
The research itself looks to identify the point at which people believe the benefits no longer outweigh the risks and therefore switch off from a particular online service. This worrying trend was also picked up by Sir Tim Berners-Lee at Le Web earlier today. Interestingly he suggested like we have here at Digi.Me, that your data should belong to you and you should be in control of that data.
The research from Open Xchange is fascinating as it delves into exactly what drives people to cancel or just stop using an online account, app or service. Take a look at the graphs below to find out more about what drives this behaviour.
The other question is what happens to your data when you stop using a service? Well in most cases unless you delete your account your data is still there for the app or service in question to use as they wish. What is of additional concern is that if you don’t keep track of updates to terms of service you could find your data is being used for all sorts of different things and being sold to third parties without you being aware.
How do you capture your data so that you still have those important pictures, images and comments that you shared on these services… Well you could always back up your data using Digi.Me (formerly SocialSafe) and store it wherever you choose. You may just want to back up your social media data just to have it all in one place. It’s amazing what you find out when you have it all in one place.
Let us know if you agree with the research and your views on data privacy in the comments or on Twitter, Google Plus or Facebook.
Bonus: Look out for Digi.Me Version 7! It’s coming out soon!
Maybe I should change that to big question… There was a question in the first paragraph in one of the drafts. Doh!
What are your thoughts on the research Todd?
What are my thoughts? At first, I was surprised that the number of “leavers” is so high. But given that I regularly run into people who do things like refusing to use Google Groups because they don’t trust Google, it really SHOULDN’T surprise me.
What was the first question?