Wednesday May 25th 2011

Most New Zealanders believe that Facebook and Google should be regulated to protect personal privacy, according to a new poll by UMR Research. The poll also showed that New Zealanders are more positive about Google than Australians are.

- 54% of New Zealanders believe that Google should be regulated to protect personal privacy, as do 63% of Australians. 51% think that Facebook should be regulated to protect personal privacy (the Facebook questions were not asked in Australia).

- 67% of New Zealanders and 69% of Australians oppose Google sharing New Zealand data with American intelligence agencies such as the FBI, NSA and CIA. 71% oppose Facebook doing the same.

- 54% of New Zealanders think that Google does a good job protecting people’s privacy, compared with 45% of Australians. 43% of New Zealanders think that Facebook has too much power.

- 94% of New Zealanders have positive opinions of Google, compared with 84% of Australians. Fewer New Zealanders have positive opinions of Facebook (73%).

- Only 19% of New Zealanders think that Google has too much power, while 46% believe that Facebook has too much power.

- 23% of New Zealanders believe that Google manipulates search results for its own benefit, compared with 32% of Australians.

The data is from UMR Research’s latest online survey of a nationally representative sample of 1,000 New Zealanders aged 18 years and over. Fieldwork was conducted from April 12-19 2011. The Australian questions on Google were asked by UMR Research Australia in March 2011 (as noted the Facebook questions were only asked in New Zealand).

ENDS

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