survey

One of the more interesting tidbits from News.com's survey published this morning on instant messaging privacy came from Skype.

The eBay-owned company says it is unable to comply with court-authorized wiretap requests.

We asked Skype: "Have you ever received a subpoena, court order or other law enforcement request asking you to perform a live interception or wiretap, meaning the contents of your users' communications would be instantly forwarded to law enforcement?"

Jennifer Caukin, Skype's director of corporate communications replied to us: "We have not received any subpoenas or court orders asking us to perform … Read more

The number of interested parties eager to listen in on your online conversations, including what you type through instant messaging, has never been higher.

It's trivial to monitor unencrypted wireless networks and snatch IM passwords as they flow through the ether. Broadband providers and their business partners are enthusiastically peeking into their customers' conversations. A bipartisan majority in Congress has handed the FBI and shadowy government agencies greater surveillance authority than ever before.

The need, in other words, for secure IM communication has never been greater. But not all IM networks offer the same privacy and security. To chart … Read more

The digital divide is apparently alive and well.

About 20 percent of all U.S. heads-of-household have never sent an e-mail, and about 20 million households, or 18 percent, are without Internet access, according to a study released earlier this week.

Similar percentages of respondents also indicated that they had never looked up a Web site or information on the Internet, the survey found.

Age and education were significant factors cited in the study, which was conducted by researcher Parks Associates. Half of those who have never used e-mail are older than 65 and 56 percent had no formal education … Read more

Very few people have sat out the iPod revolution.

At least, very few people who read CNET News.com and took the time to answer a poll about iPods, that is. Last week we asked readers to participate in an iPod survey to help inform a separate story on the future of the iPod, which ran over here.

A few disclaimers: this survey was not sanctioned by The Official Group That Makes Surveys Officious, and should not be viewed as a competitor to data complied by professional survey companies or market research firms. I think it is more representative of … Read more

The iPod survey is back up and running, please take a minute or two to share your thoughts on the iPod if you haven't already.

Due to an overwhelming response yesterday in just a few hours, we had to close our iPod survey before we could upgrade to a larger account that permits more responses. We got nearly 1,000 responses in 3 hours, which was far more than I anticipated when I signed up for the basic account. Thanks to PollDaddy.com for helping us get back up and running this morning.

The idea is to gather some … Read more

If the outcome of this year's presidential race depended solely on the whims of computer industry workers, it appears that there'd be a draw.

Or at least that's what a survey of 600 employees in that space recently found. The questionnaire was conducted just before the early March primaries by the Computing Technology Industry Association, or CompTIA, a trade association that represents mostly smaller technology companies, and Rasmussen Reports, a public-opinion research organization.

In response to a question about who'd get their votes if the election were "today," both Democrat Barack Obama and presumptive Republican nominee John McCain … Read more

If readers are any indication, Microsoft's Windows Mobile has a better base of support than one might think, but all the winds are blowing toward Apple.

The results of our first annual (maybe) smartphone survey are in, and thanks to everyone who left comments on One More Thing or Crave and t o those who flooded my inbox with responses. Yes, I know we should have a survey tool, but we're working on other stuff right now that's more important. (You'll have to trust me on that one.)

Between the comments and the e-mails, we received … Read more

This post was updated at 8:06 PM PT to add comment from Bebo.

Remember that controversial study awhile back that pegged Facebook as having the worst performance out of major social media sites? Get ready for controversy, because a new one just came out that puts youth-oriented Bebo in the top, er, bottom spot, with Facebook pulling in a rather respectable ranking.

Representatives from Pingdom, a performance monitoring software company, posted a blog entry on Tuesday with the results of a study that monitored how much downtime 14 major social networks experienced between January 1 and February 25. Bebo, … Read more

In response to a survey of 2,000 Britons conducted by electronics retailer Comet, almost half of the men polled said they would give up sex for six months in return for a 50-inch plasma TV, according to Reuters.

That compared with just over a third of women who were willing to make the same sacrifice for the big-screen television.

Read the full Reuters story: "Half of UK men would swap sex for 50-inch TV"