In light of the news that iOS4 likes to track your every move, Nielsen’s poll results released Thursday appear especially prescient. The firm found that a majority of both women and men have privacy concerns when it comes to check-ins and location-based apps on their smartphones.

Women appear a bit more concerned about the issue, with 59 percent saying so versus 52 percent of men. Concerns about big brother watching you seemed to build with age: those 25-34 showed the least concern (half of all respondents), which increased to 63 percent of those 55 and older.

The fact that the older generation seems to be more concerned with privacy shouldn’t be all that surprising: those folks lived in a society where it was considered rude to be nosy. Among so-called Generation X and Y, our social connectivity makes privacy seem like much less of an issue.

Nielsen does believe that will change. “As consumers become increasingly familiar with location-based apps, and as marketers earn their trust and become more savvy about understanding what benefits consumers expect in exchange for that information, consumers will become more comfortable with the idea of location-based mobile applications,” it wrote in a blog post.

While I am not concerned with issues of privacy myself in the location-aware apps I choose, I believe that is more out of my efforts to weed out seedier apps before I even download them. I’m not an early adopter when it comes to these types of services — I always like to give them a little bit of time before I jump right in.

Let someone else be the guinea pig, I say!

 
2 Comments


Read more: Privacy, Smartphones