A study by the information security company ESET showed that Russian Internet users do not read user agreements on websites in 81% of cases.
13% of respondents said that they completely ignore the submitted contracts and agree with them without looking. Nearly half of Russians (49%) are either vague about user agreements on the Internet or have no idea what they mean. The absolute majority (92%) do not worry if their data is transferred to third parties: they do not try to leave the site or application, in the user agreement of which such a function is indicated.
In comparison with citizens of Europe and the United States, Russians, in general, are less responsible for reading user agreements, said Fedor Muzalevsky, Director of the technical department of RTM Group. Experts noted that the reason for the digital illiteracy of Russians maybe those user agreements in the Russian Federation began to be applied later than in Western countries.
Negligent attitude to user agreements can be fraught with consequences, warned Kirill Podgorny, Director of the ESET Marketing Department. According to him, there are sometimes exotic or impossible conditions in contracts.
"A good example is the experiment of the British wireless Internet operator Purple, which introduced the clause "I undertake to go to voluntary work on cleaning public toilets" into the agreement. Out of 22 thousand users who agreed with the terms of service, only one noticed this point and complained to the provider," the experts said.
However, far more often there are potentially dangerous ones. Thus, a condition on automatic consent to the processing of personal data is illegally added to user agreements, said Lyudmila Kurovskaya, head of the Center for Legal Assistance to Citizens in the Digital Environment.
"When citizens submit their data without going into the purpose of its processing, automatically check the boxes on websites and report excessive information about themselves, it can create conditions for leakage of their personal data," she said.
