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

A scan of new data from around the world

According to Parks Associates' research, 72% of non-pay-TV subscribers subscribe to an OTT video service, which is their primary source for content. Just less than half of broadband households in the...

Connected Cars Open Doors And IoT Devices

Parks Associates revealed that 27% of U.S. car owners would connected cars to communicate with the Internet-connected devices in their home, such as smart garage door openers and door sensors. Park...

Alexa-Cortana voice integration speaks its first words

Another study from Parks Associates said almost 75% of consumers who plan to buy a smart home device said it was essential that it connect seamlessly to other products in their home electronics networ...

Augmented Reality is Redefining Remote Technical Support

What does all of this mean for your business, customer support agents, and your clients? The innovation that is happening with visual and augmented support is still just beginning, but when you look a...