• by Ray Schultz , September 18, 2020

Email ranks down on the list of data that consumers want to protect, according to an analysis by NordLocker. Of searches about encrypting data, only 13% were for email in a 30-day period, the company says.

In contrast, 38% want to protect their folders and 37% want to protect their files. In addition, 12% have inquired about other forms of data.

In the United States, 36% of the searches were for Gmail, while 8% were for Outlook and 3% were for Yahoo. 

The results are different for the UK, where only 4% seek to protect their email data. In the UK, 20% of searches were for Outlook compared to 19% for Gmail. Yahoo is not mentioned in any searches.

NordLocker, provider of an encryption tool, looked at searches from four English-speaking countries:

U.S. — 114,000 queries

UK — 22,000 queries

Canada — 7,900 queries

Australia — 5,000 queries

The company also found that U.S. consumers want to protect:

PDF — 21%

Word document — 19%

Excel — 9%

Zip file — 9%

Photo — 5%

Other — 1%

Unspecified — 36%