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

Parks: 83% of U.S. Internet Households Subscribe to at Least One OTT Service

  A solid majority — 83% — of U.S. internet households now subscribe to at least one OTT service, according to new consumer research from Parks Associates. Meanwhile, 45% still subscribe to a tradi...

Parks: Live-Streamed Video Consumption Increases to 40% Among Internet Households

New data from Parks Associates found that 40% of internet households live-streamed content over the past 90 days. The Dallas-based research firm found that live-streamed video consumption reached near...

Coming in 2022: A big leap in smart home technology

Most consumers haven't caught IoT fever yet. "New research from Parks Associates indicates that just 36% of US broadband households have one smart home device, a percentage that decreases if all house...

Speed bumps on the way to smart cities

Data security concerns are still the top hurdle to the adoption of initiatives involving connected devices, including smart-city deployments, per 451 Research. According to research released this w...