The results of a new survey of 1,005 consumers released Wednesday shows that while 78 percent of U.S. Internet users plan on shopping online this year, more than 69 percent of those shoppers will limit their online purchasing because of concerns about the possible misuse of their personal information.

The survey was conducted by San Francisco-based Truste, a nonprofit privacy organization, and market research firm TNS Global in New York. It found that privacy concerns would deter more than 40 percent of the respondents from buying from smaller online retailers, and about 22 percent said they will not be purchasing online at all.

The survey was conducted online between Oct. 27 and Nov. 1.

"There's definitely a reason for both consumers and merchants to feel more concerned" about data security and privacy issues compared with previous years, said John Pescatore, an analyst at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc.

For consumers, the biggest risks come from the increasing use of keystroke logging and password acquisition tools by hackers, Pescatore said. Such remote access tools allow cyber thieves to capture sensitive information such as credit card numbers from consumers who are doing business online, he said. A Gartner study in March showed that despite a higher awareness of phishing scams, a large number of consumers continue to be fooled into visiting Web sites that download such hacker tools.