Over the course of the last few years, the relationship between big tech companies and consumers has soured as the latter has become increasingly aware of issues such as privacy infringement, monopolistic behaviour, lack of platform moderation and so on.
Now, to assess the very same relationship, SeoClarity surveyed 1,057 U.S.-based residents. What follows next are some interesting insights into America’s trust in tech giants.
65.7% Find Google As the Most Trustworthy Company
65.7% of survey respondents found the Alphabet-owned search giant Google to be the most trusted company. It is followed by Amazon and Microsft winning 65.1% and 63.9% of respondents’ trust votes, respectively.
Apple received 62.6% of the votes from Americans, placing it as the fourth most trustworthy company.
Now, at the other end of it, SeoClarity’s survey found TikTok to be the least trusted tech and social media platform with 2 out of 5 (43%) respondents finding it distrustful. The second most distrusted company on the list came out to be Facebook at 42.6%.
Surprisingly, the Korean giant Samsung seems to be America’s favourite brand, as it has emerged as the 5th most trusted tech company with 62.3% of votes and the least distrusted company with 13% of votes.
Facebook Evades Taxes
The study also tried to check the pulls of people in the US on taxes paid by tech giants owned and managed by billionaires.
In addition to the distrust Americans harbour towards Facebook, the survey found more than a third of survey respondents (36.4%) believe Zuckerberg’s social media behemoth doesn’t pay its fair share in terms of taxes while just 36.1% say Facebook does pay enough taxes. This could be one of the biggest reasons Facebook emerged as the 2nd most distrusted tech company.
On the other hand, 46.6% of survey respondents believe Google, which emerged as the most trustworthy company in the US, pays its fair share of taxes while lesser than 30% (29.5%) say vice versa.
Favouring Social Media Regulation
The SeoClarity survey found that close to 62% of Americans want more regulations to be imposed on social media and search companies alike.
Now, when it comes to answering who should undertake the task of regulating tech and online companies, 30% of survey respondents said it should be independent bodies of experts.
This is quite different from the current regulators which include the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the executive and state and house legislatures.
Google Answers Hold Merit?
An overwhelming 61% of survey respondents said that they believe medical answers from Google are verified by medical professionals. This is quite concerning and alarming as the content which Google spits up for medical search queries of any sort can also contain answers that haven’t undergone any review by medical professionals.
Google does prioritise content from trustable sources such as the CDC when one searches for terms such as ’COVID-19 symptoms’. However, this does not mean all medical content ranked by Google is vetted by someone from a medical background.
The above-mentioned insights were some of the primary findings from SeoClarity’s survey.
Other key statics include the role of politicians and social media platforms when it comes to protecting users’ privacy online. 44% of survey respondents blamed politicians for not doing enough to protect citizens online while 73% of survey participants hold social media companies responsible for content fact-checking themselves.
You can read the entire survey report here. We will keep you updated on all future developments. Until then, stay tuned.