Maybe It’s Not Such a Great Idea to Google Your STDs Despite government protection of your health care data, new research shows that at least seven leading health sites leak your search terms to third party trackers. Maybe you should keep info about that weird rash to yourself. We’ve all done it. That moment of panic where you discover something slightly off with your body and take to the internet for self-diagnosis. Strange rash? WebMD. Too much or too little bodily fluids? Medline Plus. Insect bite that looks like you might be in the beginning stages of growing another limb? Health. Online symptom searching may seem benign, but could pose a threat to privacy, says University of Southern California-Los Angeles and Duke business school researcher Marco Huesch. Using interception software, Huesch looked at 20 leading health sites and found that seven of them leaked search terms to third party trackers, including those listed above. Five also had social media tracking plug-ins. And there’s little doubt that “herpes” is a popular search term. Read Full Story fastcoexist/1682540/maybe-its-not-such-a-great-idea-to-google-your-stds #Tech #Technology #News #Updates #Like #Follow #Comment
Posted on: Mon, 15 Jul 2013 14:23:30 +0000