Looking Up Symptoms Online? These Companies Are Tracking You

merbs writes When we feel sick, fear disease, or have questions about our health, we turn first to the internet. According to the Pew Internet Project, 72 percent of US internet users look up health-related information online. But an astonishing number of the pages we visit to learn about private health concerns—confidentially, we assume—are tracking our queries, sending the sensitive data to third party corporations, even shipping the information directly to the same brokers who monitor our credit scores.

Comments

Mine must look horrible

[Anonymous Coward]

Man mine must look horrible. I've looked up things from House, Grey's Anatomy, Breaking Bad (meth), things I've read about on slashdot, CNN, pretty much anything I ever was curious about.

They either think I'm a hypochondriac or that I'm a druggie with dozens of diseases and ailments.

mess with their data

[pinkfalcon]

okay - everyone within 10 miles of a nuclear reactor start searching for symptoms of hallucinations of aliens and swelling in only the right pinky toe. Maybe throw in random deafness every 10 minutes lasting for 30 seconds.

Re:Stupid assumptions

[Actually, I do RTFA]

. Do not do anything on the internet you would not do in your front lawn.

There's lots of stuff I feel fine doing on my front lawn, but not on the internet. Well... felt fine. Fucking invasive Google cars show up at the most inopportune times.