Internet users appear to take the concept of privacy online seriously, but their actions don’t follow their words very well. AOL surveyed a thousand online consumers in the UK in order to get a feel for their understanding of privacy issues on the Internet and found that while 84 percent said that they would remain tight-lipped about personal details, even more ended up forking them over without any hesitation. ‘Our research identified a significant gap between what people say and what they do when it comes to protecting sensitive information online,’ AOL Chief Privacy Officer Jules Polonetsky said in a statement. That gap was to the tune of 89 percent, which is the fraction of those surveyed who ended up divulging personal income details-‘without any pressure or persuasion,’ says AOL. Here at the Ars Orbiting HQ, we imagine an amusing scenario where AOL placed the two questions immediately after one another: ‘1) Would you ever tell someone your income online? 2) What is your annual household income?’ Hey, no one ever said Internet users weren’t easily distracted by shiny things. Additionally, AOL found that the more people understood about the risks involved in sharing personal details online, […]