In August 2000, the Pew Internet and American Life Project released ‘Trust and privacy online: why Americans want to rewrite the rules’, which described the results of a telephone survey. Researchers found that about a quarter of ‘internet users have provided a fake name or personal information in order to avoid giving a Web site real information’ (PEW 2000). Lying came ahead of the two other privacy-protection strategies mentioned in the report, namely email encryption software (9 per cent) and anonymizing software (5 per cent). This report caused quite a stir in the media (e.g. Charny 2000) and even prompted some zealous business executives to argue that lying when releasing personal information should be made illegal and punishable by law.
Heh.
