ArticleJAMIA open2021
Dark clouds and silver linings: impact of COVID-19 on internet users' privacy.
Article in JAMIA open, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed, 6 citations in OpenAlex.
- Exploring Attitudes and Obstacles Around Digital Public Health Tools: Insights From a Statewide Cross-Sectional Survey on Washington's Vaccine Verification System.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- Medical journals and advertiser tracking-Consequences for patients, clinicians, and editors.Digital healthArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesTo examine the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on the extent of potential violations of Internet users' privacy. MATERIALS AND
methodsWe conducted a longitudinal study of the data sharing practices of the top 1000 websites in the United States between April 9 and August 27, 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. We denote websites that asked for permission before placing cookies on users' browsers as "privacy-respecting."
resultsAs the weekly number of COVID-19 deaths increased by 1000, the average number of third parties increased by 0.26 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.15-0.37) DISCUSSION: While in general websites shared their users' data with more third parties as COVID-19 progressed in the United States, websites' expected traffic and respect for users' privacy significantly affect such trajectory.
conclusionsAttention 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.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.