Assertion Supported AI assessment confidence: 88% certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

One Third of Americans Have Taken Action to Reduce Digital Footprints

Gabriel Weinberg · Gabriel Weinberg: Practical Steps to Safeguard Your Data and Identity Online · May 14, 2019 · at 19:30

DuckDuckGo founder and CEO Gabriel Weinberg discusses consumer privacy trends based on internal survey research.

0:00 / 0:07exact quote · 7.7s

720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark

“And we've seen about a third of people take some actual significant action to reduce their digital footprint online in some Shape or form.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

DuckDuckGo research surveys show that roughly one third of Americans have taken significant action to reduce their online digital footprint.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

In DuckDuckGo's published survey research prior to May 2019, polling from October 2016 and May 2017 ('Privacy Goes Mainstream') found that 33.1% and 33.2% of U.S. adults respectively took action to change their browser's 'Do Not Track' setting, with DuckDuckGo explicitly noting that 'roughly a third of those surveyed have turned on the Do Not Track setting.' While a later November 2017 DuckDuckGo survey reported that 24% took 'significant actions' under a stricter dual-qualification standard requiring high privacy concern alongside action, the ~33% figure across individual proactive privacy actions in their core surveys substantiates Gabriel Weinberg's statement that DuckDuckGo research showed 'about a third' of people taking significant action 'in some shape or form.'

DuckDuckGo's June 2, 2017 research report ('Privacy Goes Mainstream') found 33.2% of U.S. adults reported changing browser 'Do Not Track' settings to prevent tracking and 29.5% used password managers.
DuckDuckGo explicitly characterized its June 2017 polling results by stating that 'roughly a third of those surveyed have turned on the Do Not Track setting in their web browsers.'
A November 2017 DuckDuckGo survey found 24% of U.S. adults met a combined standard of deep concern and significant action (installing tracker blockers or enabling DNT).

Checked against

[1] cnet.com [2] spreadprivacy.com [3] spreadprivacy.com [4] spreadprivacy.com [5] spreadprivacy.com [6] senate.gov [7] spreadprivacy.com [8] wikipedia.org

"Privacy is Mainstream" DuckDuckGo survey site:spreadprivacy.com survey "digital footprint" OR "actions" OR "privacy" 2018 OR 2019 "DuckDuckGo" survey "digital footprint" OR "significant action" OR "reduce" OR "privacy" 2018 OR 2019 site:spreadprivacy.com "significant privacy actions are now mainstream" OR "actions to protect our privacy" OR "taking action" 2017 DuckDuckGo research survey "digital footprint" OR "footprint" 2018 OR 2019

assessed as of 2026-09-03

This assessment is an AI reading of a public statement, made against the cited references with the confidence shown. It can be wrong. The quote, the tape and the references are all on this page; if something is off, use report an error below. full disclaimer →

Mentioned

DuckDuckGo United States

⚑ Spot an error? Report it

More from Gabriel Weinberg

Assertion Partly supported

Weinberg: Google and Facebook hold a duopoly over digital advertising

“In the world, there's a duopoly in digital advertising, and it's Google and Facebook owns basically all the digital advertising on the web, which relates to all this data profiles.”

Gabriel Weinberg May 14, 2019 ▶ 15:36 Gabriel Weinberg: Practical Steps to Safeguard Your Data and Identity Online

Opinion

Google and Facebook's Ad Duopoly Is Bankrupting Media Companies

“And so they're locking up all the growth in the industry, and that's what's putting out a business, things like media companies, as well as small business ad tech Players and other advertisers. No one can really compete with it.”

Gabriel Weinberg May 14, 2019 ▶ 15:55 Gabriel Weinberg: Practical Steps to Safeguard Your Data and Identity Online

Assertion Supported

The New York Times Increased Revenue by Dropping Behavioral Ads in Europe

“Like after GDPR in Europe, the New York Times Decided to ditch all the behavioral advertising and put up contextual advertising only and they increased revenue.”

Gabriel Weinberg May 14, 2019 ▶ 25:18 Gabriel Weinberg: Practical Steps to Safeguard Your Data and Identity Online

Assertion Supported

Google Still Makes the Majority of Its Revenue From Contextual Keyword Ads

“And if you think about it, that's really still what Google does most of the time on Google search because all the search ads are still bid on keywords, right? They're just using your search history in addition to target ads of you on YouTube and Gmail and the …”

Gabriel Weinberg May 14, 2019 ▶ 25:38 Gabriel Weinberg: Practical Steps to Safeguard Your Data and Identity Online

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Government Surveillance Capacity Has Increased Massively Despite End-to-End Encryption

“If you look at, like, the overall information law enforcement and government has to surveil people, even with end-to-end encryption existing, it's way higher than it was 10 years ago, and way, way higher than it was 20 years ago before.”

Gabriel Weinberg May 14, 2019 ▶ 31:31 Gabriel Weinberg: Practical Steps to Safeguard Your Data and Identity Online

Insight

Encryption Backdoors Built for Governments Will Inevitably Be Exploited by Adversaries

“If you enable a back door, which is what some governments are requesting it is really naive to think that that back door would only be accessed by that government who wants it.”

Gabriel Weinberg May 14, 2019 ▶ 32:40 Gabriel Weinberg: Practical Steps to Safeguard Your Data and Identity Online

One Third of Americans Have Taken Action to Reduce Digital Footprints

More from Gabriel Weinberg

Turn any episode into a week of clips.