Princeton-Radboud Study on Privacy Law Implementation | Hacker News Reader

Princeton-Radboud Study on Privacy Law Implementation

privacystudy.cs.princeton.edu

32 pointskstrauser11 comments

Researchers at Princeton University and Radboud University conducted a human subject research study on unwilling volunteers by sending them scary-looking legal compliance letters. For instance, I wrote about one I got for my tiny Mastodon instance at https://blog.freeradical.zone/post/ccpa-scam-2021-12/ .

I personally freaked out for a moment when I got the email. Others who received the letter report contacting lawyers to find out what their legal obligations were. Turns out, there's no obligation whatsoever because it was just Princeton deciding to do human research without asking permission.

Jeff Kosseff writes about this on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jkosseff/status/1471816212732596227?s=10

Edit: If you've received one of these letters, you can complain about it following the instructions at https://ria.princeton.edu/report-concern

Edit 2: More conversation about this on Mastodon at https://freeradical.zone/@tek/107464635139079510 . Warning: strong language. Feelings are running high over this.

Here is a chart of the Mastodon conversation as of this moment:

https://www.solipsys.co.uk/Chartodon/107464941539596242.svg

Discussion continues.

It isn't human subjects research just to read what a website says about its compliance to a law (or lack thereof), but once you start reaching out to actual humans to discuss the matter, it definitely does become human subjects research (we would categorize this as an interview or survey).

At the very least, the emails should have come with a notice that they were being sent as part of an academic study - after all, misleading your participants wasn't a goal of this study!

That's my take on it. You know, if the researcher hadn't invited a fake person to lie about his identity, I would've been happy to participate. I'm cranky about the deception that made me lose sleep over a research project.

The person responsible, a certain Ross Teixeira at Princeton University, is now claiming publicly on Twitter that the responses to his emails were "overwhelmingly positive", a claim which I find both fascinating and highly dubious:

https://twitter.com/RossTeixeira/status/1471249557883432967

I kind of believe it, but from selection bias. I bet a lot of recipients either went offline or consulted a lawyer. He didn't hear from the people who are furious about it.

Oh wow -- I knew Ross as one of my TAs during my undergraduate time at Berkeley. Regardless of the issues here, I recall him as a friendly and bright person.

See the related submission addressing this study from the subjects' perspective, here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29599553

The official study website is here: https://privacystudy.cs.princeton.edu/

Interestingly a FAQ was just added so presumably the researcher is aware of the negative responses but unapologetic.

Check out his Twitter thread (linked in a comment here). He's absolutely unapologetic.

What realistically will be the consequences if any for the researcher, their PI, & Princeton? What will contacting the IRB at Princeton actually do?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com