What Matters to IT in 2008?

Just where do the politics of IT workers lie?

With the presidential election less than a year away, the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) took a look at the political concerns of a cross-section of technology professionals.

Topping the list, 29 percent of survey respondents identified the war in Iraq as the greatest challenge facing the next president. Twenty-three percent said that terrorism will be the most important issue, and 19 percent said the top priority would be the economy.

In the second part of the study, which CompTIA authored and enlisted Rasmussen Reports to handle the polling, respondents were asked about issues relating specifically to the tech industry.

An overwhelming majority – 82 percent – said that the government should not regulate the Internet as it does the telephone and television industries. The 12 percent who said they favored government regulation tended to be older, Democrats or women, though no more than one-quarter of any one of those three groups said they wanted more regulation.

When asked about free trade, 48 percent of the respondents said they felt it helps the economy; 37 percent said free trade is bad for the economy.

On the hot-button issue of consumer privacy, 60 percent of IT workers said that the onus is on individuals to protect themselves. Nineteen percent said that the primary responsibility to protect privacy falls to the companies that provide Internet services; 12 percent said it should be the government’s job.

Intellectual property is a different story: 39 percent of the IT workers polled said the government needs to do more to protect intellectual property; 25 percent said less and another 25 percent said the government should maintain its current approach toward protecting IP.

This article was first published on InternetNews.com. To read the full article, click here.