About 28% of online users across the globe use some sort of anonymity tools during their browsing sessions to disguise their identity or location amid concerns about their privacy, and annoyance over censorship and content blocking, a new report revealed.
The latest GlobalWebIndex report noted that about 56% of the survey respondents reported that internet has been eroding their individual privacy.
Among all the anonymity tools, about 11% of all internet users claim to use well-known tool Tor, with 21% of Indonesians using it, followed by 18% and 15% in Vietnam and India respectively, the Guardian reported citing the GWI report.
Virtual private networks (VPNs) or proxy networks see a higher penetration in Indonesia (42%); followed by Vietnam (38%); Thailand (36%); India and China collectively account for 34%; UAE and Argentina (32%); US, UK, Germany and Ireland (17%); with the least penetration found in Japan (5%).
GWI head of trends Jason Mander said that VPNs serve a perfect dual purpose for consumers in lots of markets, allowing them to access restricted content and better content as well as stay anonymous.
"It’s a perfect combination and one that is likely to see their popularity grow," Mander said.
"It also means that the numbers using sites such as Facebook in China are likely to have been under-estimated, and that geo-located advertising is completely missing the mark for these internet users."
"The figures also suggest that the global internet audience is a lot savvier and more concerned about this type of thing than is traditionally supposed, and chimes with the statistic that 55% are concerned about their privacy being eroded by the internet."
