Study: NSA scandal unsettled German Internet users – Business Week

Most people in Germany are now online. However, the number of Internet users barely growing. The reason: The NSA revelations arouse fears among network users.

The scandal surrounding the Ausspähaktionen the secret unsettled German Internet users. Many of them felt less skilled in dealing with the net result of a representative survey of the Initiative D21. “People thought, they know their stuff, and have found because of the NSA that they know less,” said Robert Wieland, managing director of the polling institute TNS that created the study.

Accordingly, 60 percent of Germans are concerned about their personal data. 16 percent feel so insecure in dealing with computers and the internet, that they are afraid to use the technologies. “In Germany we have an insanely high security needs,” Wieland said Wednesday in Berlin. “At the same time we sit down with the new things not so intensively to protect ourselves.” For the pollsters this is a contradiction, from a user perspective, one could also speak of resignation.

The business models of large Internet companies also provide discomfort. 78 percent of Germans do not find it okay if getting in return for a free service access to other personal information. Your data safer imagine the Germans within Europe. More than half (57 percent) would like to e-mail they send within Europe, do not carry over to other countries. This idea is called “Schengen-routing” in conversation and is promoted among others by Deutsche Telekom. Give professionals consider that such a routing would be technically difficult to implement.

The federal government decides the Digital Agenda: faster Internet connections, better data security, less regulation. For a country that relies on high technology, the process is not far enough.

In addition to concerns about privacy and NSA, the study confirmed a general Trend: The number of Internet users in Germany barely growing. A good 20 percent of Germans are offline. This share is virtually unchanged for two years. The offliners are mostly female, older and live in the new federal states. In Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern about use less than 70 percent of people use the internet, while there are more than 80 percent in Hamburg and Berlin.

In order to inspire the offliners for the Internet, “one must take very specific measures, “said Malthe Wolf of TNS. He sees the danger that these people are suspended from information. Brigitte Zypries, Parliamentary State Secretary, Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs, on the other hand showed understanding. “It does not use any the Internet to be happy,” she said. The study results are not surprising for them. Older women who are not working, have few opportunities for online activities.

Zypries admonished both companies, not to oversleep digitization. “In particular, the small and medium-sized enterprises have the importance of the Internet not recognized for their business activities,” she said. “That’s why we try to attract.”

TNS polled 33,000 people on the phone. The study was funded by the Federal Ministry of Economics and representative.