Privacy Implications of Health Information Seeking on the Web, By Timothy Libert
“Privacy online is an increasingly popular field of study, yet it remains poorly defined. “Privacy” itself is a word that changes according to location, context, and culture. Additionally, the Web is a vast landscape of specialized sites and activities that may only apply to a minority of users—making defining widely shared privacy concerns difficult. Likewise, as technologies and services proliferate, the line between on- and offline is increasingly blurred. Researchers attempting to make sense of this rapidly changing environment are frequently stymied by such factors. Therefore, the ideal object of study is one that is inherently sensitive in nature, applies to the majority of users, and readily lends itself to analysis. The study of health privacy on the Web meets all of these criteria.”
- See related article by Brad Reed – “And let’s say you don’t search through Google and just find a link to health information through privacy-focused search engines like DuckDuckGo — there’s still a good chance that Facebook will know you’re searching for information on a certain disease. Why? Because websites such as the Center for Disease Control’s HIV information page contain “Share” and “Like” buttons for Facebook, which are apparently enough to let Facebook know that you’ve visited the page even if you never click on them.”
