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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

#181

Post by tiahura »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #141
walrus01 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My job involves DMCA pass through compliance and I have several hundred of such threats from a myriad of sources sitting in an inbox right now which say otherwise. Perhaps you've never had thousands of people torrenting movies using you as a service provider before.

I would hope someone in that position would understand the difference between a strongly worded email and a "actual legal threat". Serious lawyers don't use email.

Lawyers use email more than any other method of communication. I don’t think I’ve sent a “threat” by mail since Covid.

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

#182

Post by watwut »

dcow wrote: post #161
seanhunter wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well for starters they are lying and misreprenting themselves and the basis for their query. They say they are a data subject from Nice and represent that they are going to make a request under the CCPA. In actual practise they are a researcher from Princeton. If you don't think that's an ethical problem then I don't see it's worth discussing further. When you say "If I as an ordinary citizen..." you essentially make…

It really depends on your ethical framework doesn't it? People lie all the time for good reasons. Are those actions unethical? Further, I am struggling to see who was harmed here or how there was any ill intent. On top of that, the results of this study seem like they would be enlightening. It seems like society should want this experiment to be able to take place. Certainly a western liberal understanding of ethics…

The formal ethics of research on humans requires informed consent of participants.

You can take framework of sales or management where lie is just being smart, but it is not applicable here.

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

#183

Post by kube-system »

charcircuit wrote: post #140
pdonis wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asking someone questions about their compliance with a law is not the same as asking someone questions about an innocuous subject.

If I ask if your site complies with COPPA, that's not a threat that I'm going to sue you.

If I ask you a peculiar question you may wonder what my motivation was for asking it.

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

#184

Post by radu_floricica »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #48

A lot of people mocking the author or others for being scared and worried are basically blaming the victim here, and I would like them to stop. The nature of legal practices in the USA is such that the answers to "Are you totally in the clear legally?" and "Will you lose significant amounts of money proving in random courts that you are in the clear legally?" are often both yes. As a result, any researchers who send…

This I think is a typical example of having to hold two opposite thoughts at the same time.

Yes, it's a bad thing to do, it's pretty obvious that it'll scare the bejesus out of some people and even worse, have some chilling effect.

On the other hand the pendulum on ethical boards has gone waaaay in the other direction to the point where a lot of very useful research doesn't get done. The most vivid example being that we don't have human challenge trials with Covid, even now when it's crystal clear that actual risks to young healthy people are close to zero. Another example: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/29/my-irb-nightmare/

So, what's my opinion? Well, an "opinion" would require me to chose one of those two perfectly valid points of view. But if I had to, I'd say the travesty that is "ethics boards" has become a bureaucracy so rotten it doesn't even perform its original function of stopping vaguely unethical research, and has instead gone completely the way of paper pushing. While, of course, still drawing a salary from making sure tens of thousands of people are dying needlessly.

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

#185

Post by Talanes »

walrus01 wrote: post #71
0cVlTeIATBs wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What specifically is there to fear from an email like this? For one the sender opens by admitting they are not protected by the CCPA, and a quick reading about this law shows it does not apply to an individual's personal blog. If a Russian were able to file suit in California, wouldn't the defendant have a chance early on to ask a judge to dismiss it? I'm trying to sound naive because I want some gory details.

> If a Russian were able to file suit in California, wouldn't the defendant have a chance early on to ask a judge to dismiss it? a particularly foolish or over-confident defendent might represent themselves, but otherwise, I would not budget less than $2000-3000 to hire a lawyer to draft and file a response to statement of claim and show up in court to attempt to get it dismissed before it gets started.

> a particularly foolish or over-confident defendent might represent themselves, but otherwise, I would not budget less than $2000-3000 to hire a lawyer

Foolish, overconfident, or just "never have had $3000 in one place and time in my entire life."

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

#186

Post by watwut »

tiahura wrote: post #174
MR4D wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’ve clearly never dealt with lawyers very much. The implied threat is pretty obvious to those that have.

Lawyers don’t imply potential litigation, they are quite explicit.

No, not in first contact fish for mistake email.

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

#187

Post by MaulingMonkey »

charcircuit wrote: post #138
dqv wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They weren't just asking questions. From the email: >My questions are about your process for when I do submit a request. It's really easy to read this as "I am going to be submitting a request." >I look forward to your reply without undue delay and at most within 45 days of this email, as required by Section 1798.130 of the California Civil Code. So I'd say there is some legal threat here.

submitting a request isn't at all like a lawsuit

> I look forward to your reply without undue delay and at most within 45 days of this email, as required by Section 1798.130 of the California Civil Code.

This reads as a thinly vieled command to respond, not a mere request, citing legal code and (incorrectly) asserting it's applicability as a basis for the authority to give such a command, with the implication being the possibility of legal action if the demanded response is not provided.

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

#188

Post by dataflow »

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,…

> 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.

Are you sure about this? Didn't these requests get sent to entities that didn't even fall under the categories in the statutes? Meaning they would in fact not have been normally dealing with these kinds of requests on a regular basis (if at all)?

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

#189

Post by lisper »

seanhunter wrote: post #136
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,…

Well for starters they are lying and misreprenting themselves and the basis for their query. They say they are a data subject from Nice and represent that they are going to make a request under the CCPA. In actual practise they are a researcher from Princeton. If you don't think that's an ethical problem then I don't see it's worth discussing further. When you say "If I as an ordinary citizen..." you essentially make…

> They say they are a data subject from Nice

Huh? Are we reading the same article? Because what I see is this:

> My name is Maya Mishina, and I am a resident of Novosibirsk, Russia.

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

#190

Post by brabel »

seanhunter wrote: post #136
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,…

Well for starters they are lying and misreprenting themselves and the basis for their query. They say they are a data subject from Nice and represent that they are going to make a request under the CCPA. In actual practise they are a researcher from Princeton. If you don't think that's an ethical problem then I don't see it's worth discussing further. When you say "If I as an ordinary citizen..." you essentially make…

> they are lying and misreprenting themselves

The police does that quite often to catch criminals. Sometimes they also target innocent people, is that ethical?

People on HN don't usually lie, I hope, but most "misrepresent" themselves using anonymous accounts, sometimes claiming to be more than they actually are (I know, shocking).

Emails you receive are more likely to be scams than not. If you're like the author and freaks out at legally-sounding emails (or phone calls, discussion forum comments etc) received from random people, you're going to be a really stressed, anxious person your whole life.

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