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

The two, opposing IoT r/evolutions in play

Before we go any further, let’s look at the vastness of the IoT space for a moment. The global Internet of Things market will grow to $1.7 trillion in 2020 from $655.8 billion in 2014. According to Ga...

Apple Preps Amazon Echo Rival – Is This The Connected Intelligence Moment?

At the moment, hospitality, retail, and even QSR brands are examining the role that voice-activated assistants could play in complementing service and sales staffs at their respective hotels and store...

20% of Broadband Homes Now Get TV Via Antenna

While many of our regulars have realized the benefits of an over the air antenna for years, it's a phenomenon that more recently has caught on among Millennials and younger broadband subscribers looki...

Report: Pay-TV Subscriptions to Drop 27% by 2024; Streaming Apps to Pick Up the Slack

Pay-TV services are showing their age as subscribership continues to fall, leading to a projected 76.7 million subscriber decrease by 2024, according to a report by Parks Associates. This drop wou...