Most Internet Users Demand Anonymity, Admit It's Not Going to Happen

The recent explosion in Tor usage has been a heartening sign that the people of the internet don't want to be tracked. But, as we've learned, efforts to remain anonymous in the modern internet are largely futile.

A new poll from Pew Internet highlights that stark contrast, finding that the vast majority of internet users wish to be more anonymous online, yet a smaller majority also believes that it's impossible to be completely anonymous in 2013.

Of the 792 internet users in the poll, a total of 86 percent "have tried to be anonymous online and taken at least one step to try to mask their behavior or avoid being tracked." Such behavior under the terms of the Pew poll could be things as simple as deleting one's browser history.

When you get down to more serious steps, like using fake emails or encryption, the numbers get a lot lower, as you can see in Pew's graph below. One number I find relatively surprising is that only 25 percent of respondents had posted anonymous comments.

Partly this is due to many users not posting comments at all, but also hints at a broader trend online: Comment systems, along with social networks and everything else, are increasingly requiring people to use their real names. (Yes, I know this includes Motherboard.)

The poll found that user behaviors bounced back and forth between being anonymous and forthcoming with their sharing. As you'd probably expect, it's heavily dependent on how old the user is. First, look at this graph showing how different age groups use anonymity tactics:

Younger internet users are more likely to take steps to protect their privacy (and clean up their old posting history) than older groups. This is speculation, but I think this trend is partly due to younger users better understanding the privacy tools at their disposal and because they are more invested in their personal lives online. Put another way, when you share more of yourself online, you're more likely to be concerned about hiding the private bits.

Yet at the same time, younger users are also more likely to post material online that's attached to their own name. I also find it fascinating that younger folks have such a markedly larger interest in using "recognizable" usernames. We all hold our pun-laden handles dear, don't we.

Again, not a surprise given that younger folks have put more of their lives online than older generations. Again, what is surprising is that so few people have posted somewhere without revealing their actual name. That not for lack of wanting to; the poll found that 59 percent of users think people should be able to use the internet completely anonymously, while 33 percent think no one should.

Those numbers were reversed when asked if anonymity is even possible. 59 percent said anonymous web usage is completely impossible, while 37 percent said it is. (Curiously, 64 percent of women felt anonymity is impossible, while just 54 percent of men did. I'd love to hear theories as to why this is.)

Given what we know now about the massive surveillance state, it would seem that no one is anonymous online if the NSA or the equivalent really wants to track you down. But perhaps of more concern to users is the gradual erosion of anonymity in more public places.

Yes, the NSA having backdoors into email encryption is a massive issue, but the web's transition into a more corporate, public place where we all leave digital trails clearly attached to our verified selves is more of a philosophical quandary.

On the one hand, it makes sense for Google, Facebook, and all the other behemoths now powering the web to try to get users to be as public as possible—it's good for targeted advertising, and it also makes networks stronger. Admit it: It's easier to use Facebook knowing that you can just find your friend George Stevenson, and not have to search for xXxXGeorgec000lguyXXxx.

On the other, the internet has become more integral to our lives than ever, and yet our privacy standards online appear to be eroding faster than they have in meatspace. A large part of this has to do with our own personal choices, of course; no one is compelling you to be an oversharer. At the same time, if the internet is a second dimension to our lives, we can't simply treat it as a purely public forum. There has to be recourses for us to do things in private, just as there are in real life.

It's not anything sinister, either. Would you want your neighbor to know everything you watch on Netflix? Maybe you don't care, but it'd also be annoying as hell to have that one guy always bugging you in the hallway about the latest episode of King of the Hill you watched. It goes the same online. Sometimes we want to have anonymous interactions simply because we don't want other clowns butting into our own space. Yet that type of casual anonymity is slipping away.

@derektmead