Providing market intelligence for more than 35 years

In The News

Network Security: Hacking Fears Could Scare Consumers Away from Smart-Home Devices

The rising occurrence of high-profile security hacks and privacy breaches, as well as being personally victimized, are contributing to ever-increasing consumer anxiety about smart home devices and platforms, according to new research.

Parks Associates’ latest quarterly survey of 10,000 U.S. broadband households found that almost half of consumers rank data security and privacy issues as their greatest concerns about connecting devices to the Internet, compared to other problems they may encounter, such as with tech support. Forty percent of the respondents say they have experienced a privacy or security problem with a connected device in the past year, most commonly viruses and malware.

“Our most recent data reveals that almost half of U.S. broadband households are ‘very concerned’ [rating 6-7 on a 7-point scale] about hackers getting control of connected devices and hackers getting access to data from the device,” says Parks Associates Research Analyst Brad Russell. “In tracing trending changes on these consumer attitudes from 2014 to 2016, we find that while the total share of consumers who are ‘concerned’ [rating 5-7] has not appreciably changed, the share of those that are ‘very concerned’ has grown by 6% to 7%. Similarly, the share of consumers who are ‘not concerned [rating 1-3] has shrunk by about half.”

From the article "Network Security: Hacking Fears Could Scare Consumers Away from Smart-Home Devices" by Rodney Bosch.

Previously In The News

Is It Time to Bring Back the TV Antenna?

Over 80% of us subscribe to some form of pay TV service, whether cable- or-satellite based. We get hundreds of channels, most of which we do not watch. And while the service is generally good, the mon...

Original Content And World Domination: New Report Shows Netflix is Absolutely Killing It

The driving force behind these mammoth figures seem to be Netflix’s endeavour to create excellent original content – pouring an insane amount of cash into shows like Stranger Things, House of Cards an...

Netflix powers up theChive to promote Marvel's 'Iron Fist'

Streaming video overall is coming from a place of strength. Netflix’s customer growth from last year’s Q3 exceeded expectations, and separate reports from January found streaming and over-the-top serv...

Streaming service bundles are a new way to attract subscribers

The demand for over-the-top (OTT) media services exploded when the global coronavirus pandemic forced millions of people to refrain from social gatherings and stringent lockdown measures heavily regul...