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.

Sensational headline

[mi]

Companies are tracking you. Period. Whatever you do, on whatever site. That site and its partners are tracking you — as much as you can be identified, that is. And before you blame "KKKorporations", ask yourself, why a page like this has elements from AddThis and Google Analytics...

AdBlock to the rescue. Sort of.

Re:Sensational headline

[BoRegardless]

Fix: use library computers for sensitive searches.

Re:Sensational headline

[mi]

There is a risk of non-financial data creeping into financial evaluation of borrowers and job seekers and that has a lot of potential for harm.

What "harm"? If a syphilis-infection, for example, increases one's danger of bankruptcy, his credit score should reflect that. And if it does not have such an effect, nobody would care for that particular attribute of a profile, and thus the information brokers will not be paid for it.

It's basically impossible to have a normal existence in the U.S. without allowing these companies to have your personal information.

That's only because our understanding of "normal" is so high. And we've achieved that thanks to (in part) it being easy for creditors to check, whether a debtor is credit-worthy.

none of us can be safe from fraud and unreasonable discrimination

Fraud is an evil to be fought — to the point of chopping-off arms of the repeat offenders.

But what "unreasonable discrimination" are you talking about?

Re:Sensational headline

[sjames]

I'm pretty sure all those "whites only" and "Irish need not apply" signs were hung by businesses.

I understand some business today aren't that fond of people who are gay or use birth control.

To quote Adam Savage

[sbrown7792]

confidentially, we assume

Well there's your problem!
Are you paying these companies for access to their information database? If you're not paying, YOU'RE THE PRODUCT.

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:mess with their data

[knorthern knight]

> I started complaining about symptoms of coins falling
> out of my ass and got audited the next day.

That's a new type of currency. Maybe we should call it butt-coin.

Re:As in, Lung Cancer?

[Penguinisto]

Replace "smoker" with "diabetic", "downs syndrome parent", "thyroid issue" (obesity), etc etc...

Once that box is opened, all bets are off as to what can be denied. ;)

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.

Trackers on Slashdot

[duckintheface]

When I clicked on this story, I checked my Privacy Badger listing. It showed 3 trackers operating on Slashdot:
b.scorecardresearch.com
cdn.taboola.com
googlea....doubleclick.net

I'm using Privacy Badger (from the Free Software Foundation) to block all three.

Re:Trackers on Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Using Ghostery. I see on Slashdot:

DoubleClick Advertising
Google AdWords Conversion Advertising
Google Analytics Analytics, Analytics
Janrain Widgets
ScoreCard Research Beacon Beacons, Analytics
Taboola Widgets, Video Player
Zedo Advertising

I block all trackers on all sites. That way nobody knows about mt STDs

Library computers even worse

[mi]

I, for one, find web-browsing without AdBlock to be suffocating nowadays. Upon coming to an unfamiliar site I usually spend a few minutes to add its stable of 1x1 "images", anal ytics, and new relics to the black list. I then remove the elements (divs, headers, footers, and sections), of cruft, as well as the site's own spelling of "social sharebar".

Once only the article's text and, possibly, article-specific illustrations remain, can I get down to reading it — a luxury rarely obtained on a government-provided computer.

Besides, whatever you may think of corporate efforts to pierce through your anonymity online, you are certainly not anonymous to the nice librarian ladies — without any efforts on their part.

Re:Library computers even worse

[tlhIngan]

Besides, whatever you may think of corporate efforts to pierce through your anonymity online, you are certainly not anonymous to the nice librarian ladies â" without any efforts on their part.

Except librarians typically are of the freedom loving kind - they see the government intrusions are doing what they can to stop them.

Your signing In on the library computers is likely destroyed by the librarians as soon as you leave, if not by the end of the day - by not having the records, it means the librarian can honestly answer that they have no idea who used it yesterday.

It's happened with book lending records - after a bunch of government requests on lender history, libraries started routinely destroying the record after the book is returned.

Re:Library computers even worse

[Devoidoid]

Librarians do not work for the government. That's slander, that is.

after a bunch of government requests on lender history, libraries started routinely destroying the record after the book is returned.

That was an excellent opportunity for you to offer citations, but, even if you have any, it may be smoke up your (and mine) eyes to make us believe, library computers are saf — because of the heroic librarians. I'd just use tor.

"RESOLVED, That the American Library Association urges all libraries to adopt and implement patron privacy and record retention policies that affirm that "the collection of personally identifiable information should only be a matter of routine or policy when necessary for the fulfillment of the mission of the library" (ALA Privacy: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights); and, be it further

RESOLVED, That the American Library Association considers sections of the USA PATRIOT Act are a present danger to the constitutional rights and privacy rights of library users and urges the United States Congress to:

provide active oversight of the implementation of the USA PATRIOT Act and other related measures, and the revised Attorney General Guidelines to the Federal Bureau of Investigation;

hold hearings to determine the extent of the surveillance on library users and their communities; and amend or change the sections of these laws and the guidelines that threaten or abridge the rights of inquiry and free expression..."

(http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=ifresolutions&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=11891)

"The library will do its utmost to uphold the privacy and confidentiality of patrons’ free access to information. The library follows the laws and library policies to control behavior that involves public safety or criminal behavior.

Does the “Patriot Act” Change Things?

Yes, and this is a dilemma for the North Adams Public Library. The library has the responsibility of protecting the privacy of its patrons while responding to national security concerns.

Should library records be requested under the USA Patriot Act, the law states that in certain circumstances, library staff cannot inform the person about whom the information is requested, cannot speak to co-workers, the media or other government officials about the inquiry. Such requests, should they occur, may only be reported to the appropriate higher authority within the library. Under the USA PATRIOT Act, failure to comply with the search warrant, or of other applicable terms of those acts, is a felony.

...

The NAPL Procedures Regarding Information Access and Confidentiality

...

Once a search has been conducted, the software does not retain a copy of the search, and therefore no record of the search will exist.

...

Patrons use their library card to check out a computer but the record of this use is cleared when the next person logs on to the computer. When the patron logs off the Gates computers the software erases all history of their research and activity. The Dell computers keep the history for 24 hours after a patron has logged off.

...

When a hold is placed on a patron’s account, by the patron or a library staff member, the system creates a link to that item. No long-term record of the hold is retained by C/WMARS beyond the point of the circulation transaction.

...

Interlibrary Loan Records: These transactions are for requested items that do not appear in the C/W MARS network libraries. The NAPL tracks these items until they are returned to the owning library then all paper records are destroyed.

(http://www.naplibrary.com/policies/patriotact/)

"In protecting the privacy rights and the confidentiality rights of library us

Incognito mode

[hawguy]

I always use Chrome's Incognito Mode when looking up symptoms from myself, and regular mode when I look up symptoms for someone else (or something I saw on TV). So WebMD might think I have an ectopic pregnancy, but they would be wrong.

Re:Incognito mode

[Anonymous Coward]

Incognito doesn't stop them from recording your IP address. Especially if they don't have any other information about you they are going to zero in on your IP address and use it to integrate the data from your previous (and future) browsing records,

Adblock Edge, or Pale Moon with Adblock Latitude.

[Futurepower(R)]

Use Adblock Edge. By hiding what it was doing, Adblock Plus has killed itself.

By hiding what it was doing when it sneakily adopted Microsoft Bing search, calling it Yahoo search, Mozilla Foundation has done irreparable harm to Firefox. Mozilla Foundation seems to be driving users to the Pale Moon 64-bit version of Firefox with Adblock Latitude.

Re:As in, Lung Cancer?

[dpilot]

Wish I had mod points. This has been one of my problems with the whole NSA scandal - it has taken eyes off of the bigger problem. Even as people think of protecting themselves from the various Three Letter Agencies, they forget about the ones that end in ".com".

Re:As in, Lung Cancer?

[SecurityGuy]

Or is researching something a family member, friend, acquantance, etc has.

I'm fortunate to be healthy as the proverbial horse, but people I know have come down with some nasties lately, and I've done some research to try to understand their conditions.

Assuming people only read about ailments they have is rather stupid.