Privacy Policy Disclosures of Behavioural Tracking on Consumer Health Websites

摘要

Many Internet users are seeking health information online,encountering significant privacy risks in the process.Historically, these risks are associated with personallyidentifiable information, but behavioural tracking presents anew and increasing threat to privacy. In this paper, weanalyze the disclosure, in a set of website privacy policies,of the collection of non-personally identifiable informationby consumer health information websites. The websites allengage in first and third party behavioural tracking usingcookies and web beacons, and are among the sitesrecommended by consumer health sections of the MedicalLibrary Association or the Canadian Health LibrariesAssociation (see Burkell and Fortier, 2012, 2013). Ouranalysis reveals that while the majority of these sitesdisclose both first party (6/7) and third party (5/7)behavioural tracking, the language used in these disclosuresis difficult to understand, tending to minimize behaviouraltracking and obfuscate agency in the tracking process.These results suggest that consumer health informationwebsite privacy policies do not provide optimal disclosureof behavioural tracking practices. Library and informationscience professionals should work with users to ensure theyare aware of the behavioural tracking practices of thewebsites they visit, assisting them to interpret thedisclosures provided in website privacy policies.