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Dark clouds and silver linings : impact of COVID-19 on internet users’ privacy
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Gopal, Ram D., Hidaji, Hooman, Patterson, Raymond A. and Yaraghi, Niam (2021) Dark clouds and silver linings : impact of COVID-19 on internet users’ privacy. JAMIA Open . ooab100. doi:10.1093/jamiaopen/ooab100 (In Press)
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WRAP-Dark-clouds-silver-linings-impact-COVID-19-internet-users-privacy-2021.pdf - Accepted Version - Requires a PDF viewer. Available under License Creative Commons: Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0. Download (254Kb) | Preview |
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1093/jamiaopen/ooab100
Abstract
Objectives: To examine the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the extent of potential violations of Internet users’ privacy. Materials and Methos: We conducted a longitudinal study of the data sharing practices of the top 1,000 websites in the US between April 9th and August 27th, 2020. We fitted a conditional latent growth curve model on the data to examine the longitudinal trajectory of the third-party data sharing over the 21 weeks period of the study and examine how website characteristics affect this trajectory.
Results: As the weekly number of COVID-19 deaths increased by 1,000, the average number of third parties increased by 0.26 [95%CI, 0.15 to 0.37] P<.001 units in the next week. This effect was more pronounced for websites with higher traffic as they increased their third parties by an additional 0.41 [95% CI, 0.18 to 0.64]; P<.001 units per week. However, privacy respecting websites that experienced a surge in traffic reduced their third parties by 1.01 [95% CI, -2.01 to 0]; P = 0.05 units per week in response to every 1,000 COVID-19 deaths in the preceding week.
Discussion: While in general websites shared their users’ data with more third parties as COVID-19 progressed in the US, websites’ expected traffic and respect for users’ privacy significantly affect such trajectory.
Conclusions: Attention should also be paid to the impact of the pandemic on elevating online privacy threats, and the variation in third-party tracking among different types of websites.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
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| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA76 Electronic computers. Computer science. Computer software R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine T Technology > TK Electrical engineering. Electronics Nuclear engineering |
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| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Warwick Business School > Information Systems & Management Faculty of Social Sciences > Warwick Business School |
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| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | COVID-19 (Disease), Data privacy -- United States, Internet -- Security measures, Computer networks -- Security measures, Computer security | ||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | JAMIA Open | ||||||
| Publisher: | Oxford University Press | ||||||
| ISSN: | 2574-2531 | ||||||
| Official Date: | 9 November 2021 | ||||||
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| Article Number: | ooab100 | ||||||
| DOI: | 10.1093/jamiaopen/ooab100 | ||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
| Publication Status: | In Press | ||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Open Access | ||||||
| RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: |
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