Giving Compass' Take:

• A new United Nations survey finds that people across the world are increasingly worried about online data breaches and whether their privacy is truly being safeguarded.

• This may not be a surprise in the wake of the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica controversy, but it's still worth looking at how people in emerging nations view tech companies. Will that affect development efforts?

• One thing that may help rebuild trust: Big funders are supporting independent research about Facebook.

Internet users worldwide are becoming more worried about their privacy online and many question the protections offered by Internet and social media companies, a new United Nations survey has found.

This waning of confidence could imperil the spread of online shopping even as newcomers to the Internet may be especially vulnerable to abuses because they are unaware of the risks.

“Trust is essential for the successful expansion and use of e-commerce platforms and mobile payment systems in developing nations,” said Fen Osler Hampson, Director of Global Security and Politics at Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), a think tank that helped conduct the study.

The survey was carried out by CIGI and Ipsos, in collaboration with the UN Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the Internet Society.

Users in large emerging economies expressed the most “trust” in Internet firms with nine in ten expressing such faith in China, India and Indonesia and more than eight in ten doing so in Pakistan and Mexico.

To the contrary, fewer than 60 percent of consumers in Japan and Tunisia expressed such “trust.”

Read the full article about how global anxiety is deepening over data collection and privacy at UN News.