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I was part of a human subject research study without my consent

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Re: I was part of a human subject research study without my consent

#31

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

etataetaet wrote: post #24
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #8

> My name is Maya Mishina, and I am a resident of Novosibirsk, Russia. If i received such an email, I would mark it as spam and move on with my life. Why did this blogger take it seriously? Does she take other forms of spam so seriously? I do feel for her stress and anxiety, but I also have to question her mental ability to filter noise. Life must be quite stressful for her overall.

I'm sorry but how can you make the assumption that "life must be quite stressful for her overall."? We know almost nothing about her life or what kind of situation she is in... It seems a little weird to make such large assumptions about anyone who you don't personally know!

No post body was provided.

Re: I was part of a human subject research study without my consent

#32

Post by analog31 »

dcow wrote: post #17

Can someone help me understand the ethical problem here? If I as an ordinary citizen contacted the webmaster with a similar worded email, the result would have been the same. The fact is that this “experiment” did not create any more or additional stress than is created for normal citizens/businesses simply engaging in normal legal activities. If submitting such a request has the potential to cause such undue stress,…

In my view the academe can't control how people treat one another in general, but they can refuse to support research based on abusing people.

Re: I was part of a human subject research study without my consent

#33

Post by progman32 »

dcow wrote: post #17

Can someone help me understand the ethical problem here? If I as an ordinary citizen contacted the webmaster with a similar worded email, the result would have been the same. The fact is that this “experiment” did not create any more or additional stress than is created for normal citizens/businesses simply engaging in normal legal activities. If submitting such a request has the potential to cause such undue stress,…

Perhaps you're making an assumption that "normal citizens" receive legal threats regularly? I can count the legal threats I've received on one hand, and I can assure you the days following them were, unfortunately, quite unpleasant (fortunately nothing came of it).

Stress aside, part of the problem is the very real possibility of a subject wasting money on hiring a lawyer.

Re: I was part of a human subject research study without my consent

#34

Post by [deleted] »

Zababa wrote: post #19
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #8

> My name is Maya Mishina, and I am a resident of Novosibirsk, Russia. If i received such an email, I would mark it as spam and move on with my life. Why did this blogger take it seriously? Does she take other forms of spam so seriously? I do feel for her stress and anxiety, but I also have to question her mental ability to filter noise. Life must be quite stressful for her overall.

You omit the following line: > I have a few questions about your process for responding to California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) data access requests This is the worrying part.

[deleted]

Re: I was part of a human subject research study without my consent

#35

Post by pkrotich »

Interesting - we received the same email but requester was a resident of Roanoke, Virginia. And the request was in regard to GDPR.

It smelled like SPAM enough for me to check the email headers - SPF and DMARC passed and was sent from potomacmail.com servers.

Another odd thing was - the request was for a customer using our SAAS application - so their targeting is not exactly accurate. I wanted to ignore it but we get emails all the time meant for our clients - so we simply replied that they should direct the request to the party in question.

Re: I was part of a human subject research study without my consent

#36

Post by avalys »

I don't see anything unethical about sending an email asking website operators how they comply with their obligations under various privacy laws. If you are not subject to those laws, you can reply as such. And if you are subject to those laws - it is a valid question!

If you find the prospect of receiving this email so horrifying, perhaps your real problem is with the laws themselves?

Re: I was part of a human subject research study without my consent

#37

Post by jameshart »

dcow wrote: post #17

Can someone help me understand the ethical problem here? If I as an ordinary citizen contacted the webmaster with a similar worded email, the result would have been the same. The fact is that this “experiment” did not create any more or additional stress than is created for normal citizens/businesses simply engaging in normal legal activities. If submitting such a request has the potential to cause such undue stress,…

This argument amounts to "If something can happen, then it's okay for a researcher to cause it to happen in order to study the result."

I hope it's obvious why that is a poor ethical standard for what constitutes acceptable research practice.

Re: I was part of a human subject research study without my consent

#38

Post by snowytrees »

dcow wrote: post #17

Can someone help me understand the ethical problem here? If I as an ordinary citizen contacted the webmaster with a similar worded email, the result would have been the same. The fact is that this “experiment” did not create any more or additional stress than is created for normal citizens/businesses simply engaging in normal legal activities. If submitting such a request has the potential to cause such undue stress,…

I see the issue being the email was formulated in a way that is easily perceived as a legal threat. I don't see how it is ethical for a study to be sending out legal threats to see how someone responds. Now if the goal is to understand how websites respond to the CCPA/GDPR then it shouldn't be too difficult to ask how they would respond to a request and note that it is part of a voluntary study.

Re: I was part of a human subject research study without my consent

#39

Post by ethbr0 »

omgitsabird wrote: post #2

"In order to be considered a covered business, the organization needs to have annual gross revenues in excess of twenty-five million, possess the personal information of 50,000 consumers, or derive 50 percent or more of its annual revenue from selling consumers' personal information."

> or derive 50 percent or more of its annual revenue from selling consumers' personal information

Wouldn't that cover most blogs that run ads?

Re: I was part of a human subject research study without my consent

#40

Post by avalys »

progman32 wrote: post #33
dcow wrote: post #17

Can someone help me understand the ethical problem here? If I as an ordinary citizen contacted the webmaster with a similar worded email, the result would have been the same. The fact is that this “experiment” did not create any more or additional stress than is created for normal citizens/businesses simply engaging in normal legal activities. If submitting such a request has the potential to cause such undue stress,…

Perhaps you're making an assumption that "normal citizens" receive legal threats regularly? I can count the legal threats I've received on one hand, and I can assure you the days following them were, unfortunately, quite unpleasant (fortunately nothing came of it). Stress aside, part of the problem is the very real possibility of a subject wasting money on hiring a lawyer.

I didn't see a legal threat in the original email.
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