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New York (pte035/21.07.2005/14:20) - A recent study done by the Pew Internet and American Life Project http://www.pewinternet.org found that a high percentage of Internet users are unfamiliar with Internet terminology.
Podcasting, RSS, phishing are just three terms now floating around in cyberspace used increasingly by those in the know. Pew Internet's study, however, found that the general public doesn't know what these terms mean.
Seventy per cent of Internet users were unfamiliar with the term 'phishing'. It refers to fast-growing email scams sent out by imposter companies, either credit card issuers or banks, which try and get users to reveal sensitive and private information.
Podacasting, a term that 87 per cent of users didn't know, is used to describe the distribution of audio files over the Internet for playback on computers or digital music players.
RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is a technology used to pull summaries of new entries on news sites and web journals.
The survey, conducted between 4th May and 7th June, was based on random telephone interviews with 1,336 Internet users, "a sobering reality check," said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew project.
"When you look at the adoption of anything, once a critical mass of people are in the know, they assume that everybody else around them are as aware as they are," Rainie said.
Rainie advocates continued education campaigns for Internet users to avoid falling prey to scammers, but also for users' general Internet knowledge.
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