PubMed Lets Google Track User Searches

CT scan of a Mesothelioma patient.
CC BY-SA by Frank Gaillard

If you search on Google for "Best Mesothelioma Lawyer" and then click on one of the ads, Google can earn as much as a thousand dollars for your click. In general, Google can make a lot of money if it knows you're the type of user who's interested in rare types of cancer. So you might be surprised that Google gets to know everything you search for when you use PubMed, the search engine offered by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), a service of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Our tax dollars work really hard and return a lot of value at NCBI, but I was surprised to discover Google's advertising business is getting first crack at that value!

You may find this hard to believe, but you shouldn't take may word for it. Go and read the NLM Privacy Policy,  in particular the section on "Demographic and Interest Data"

On some portions of our website we have enabled Google Analytics and other third-party software (listed below), to provide aggregate demographic and interest data of our visitors. This information cannot be used to identify you as an individual. While these tools are used by some websites to serve advertisements, NLM only uses them to measure demographic data. NLM has no control over advertisements served on other websites.

DoubleClick: NLM uses DoubleClick to understand the characteristics and demographics of the people who visit NLM sites. Only NLM staff conducts analyses on the aggregated data from DoubleClick. No personally identifiable information is collected by DoubleClick from NLM websites. The DoubleClick Privacy Policy is available at https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/
You can opt-out of receiving DoubleClick advertising at https://support.google.com/ads/answer/2662922?hl=en.

I will try to explain what this means and correct some of the misinformation it contains.

DoubleClick is Google's display advertising business. DoubleClick tracks users across websites using "cookies" to collect "demographic and interest information" about users. DoubleClick uses this information to improve its ad targeting. So for example, if a user's web browsing behavior suggests an interest in rare types of cancer, DoubleClick might show the user an ad about mesothelioma. All of this activity is fully disclosed in the DoubleClick Privacy Policy, which approximately 0% of PubMed's users have actually read. Despite what the NLM Privacy Policy says, you can't opt-out of receiving DoubleClick Advertising, you can only opt out of DoubleClick Ad Targeting. So instead of Mesothelioma ads, you'd probably be offered deals at Jet.com

It's interesting to note that before February 21 of this year, there was no mention of DoubleClick in the privacy policy (see the previous policy ). Despite the date, there's no reason to think that the new privacy policy is related to the change in administrations, as NIH Director Francis Collins was retained in his position by President Trump. More likely it's related to new leadership at NLM. In August of 2016, Dr. Patricia Flatley Brennan became NLM director. Dr. Brennan, a registered nurse and an engineer, has emphasized the role of data to the Library's mission. In an interview with the Washington Post, Brennan noted:

In the 21st century we’re moving into data as the basis. Instead of an experiment simply answering a question, it also generates a data set. We don’t have to repeat experiments to get more out of the data. This idea of moving from experiments to data has a lot of implications for the library of the future. Which is why I am not a librarian.

The "demographic and interest data" used by NLM is based on individual click data collected by Google Analytics. As I've previously written, Google Analytics  only tracks users across websites if the site-per-site tracker IDs can be connected to a global tracker ID like the ones used by DoubleClick. What NLM is allowing Google to do is to connect the Google Analytics user data to the DoubleClick user data. So Google's advertising business gets to use all the Google Analytics data, and the Analytics data provided to NLM can include all the DoubleClick "demographic and interest" data.

What information does Google receive when you do a search on Pubmed?
For every click or search, Google's servers receive:

• your search term and result page URL
• your DoubleClick user tracking ID
• your referring page URL
• your IP address
• your browser software and operating system

While "only NLM staff conducts analyses on the aggregated data from DoubleClick", the DoubleClick tracking platform analyzes the unaggregated data from PubMed. And while it's true that "the demographic and interest data" of PubMed visitors cannot be used to identify them as  individuals, the data collected by the Google trackers can trivially be used to identify as individuals any PubMed users who have Google accounts. Last year, Google changed its privacy policy to allow it to associate users' personal information with activity on sites like PubMed.

"Depending on your account settings, your activity on other sites and apps may be associated with your personal information in order to improve Google’s services and the ads delivered by Google.

So the bottom line is that Google's stated policies allow Google to associate a user's activity on PubMed with their personal information. We don't know if Google makes use of PubMed activity or if the data is saved at all, but NLM's privacy policy is misleading at best on this fact.

Does this matter? I have written that commercial medical journals deploy intense advertising trackers on their websites, far in excess of what NLM is doing. "Everybody" does it. And  we know that agencies of the US government spend billions of dollars sifting through web browsing data looking for terrorists, so why should NLM be any different? So what if Google gets a peek at PubMed user activity - they see such a huge amount of user data that PubMed is probably not even noticeable.

Google has done some interesting things with search data. For example, the "Google Flu Trends" and "Google Dengue Trends" projects studied patterns of searches for illness - related terms. Google could use the PubMed Searches for similar investigations into health provider searches.

The puzzling thing about NLM's data surrender is the paltry benefit it returns. While Google gets un-aggregated, personally identifiable data, all NLM gets is some demographic and interest data about their users. Does NLM really want to better know the age, gender, and education level of PubMed users??? Turning on the privacy features of Google Analytics (i.e. NOT turning on DoubleClick) has a minimal impact on the usefulness of the usage data it provides.

Lines need to be drawn somewhere. If Google gets to use PubMed click data for its advertising, what comes next? Will researchers be examined as terror suspects if they read about nerve toxins or anthrax? Or perhaps inquiries into abortifactants or gender-related hormone therapies will be become politically suspect. Perhaps someone will want a list of people looking for literature on genetically modified crops, or gun deaths, or vaccines? Libraries should not be going there.

So let's draw the line at advertising trackers in PubMed. PubMed is not something owned by a publishing company,  PubMed belongs to all of us. PubMed has been a technology leader worthy of emulation by libraries around the world. They should be setting an example. If you agree with me that NLM should stop letting Google track PubMed Users, let Dr. Brennan know (politely, of course.)

Notes:

1. You may wonder if the US government has a policy about using third party services like Google Analytics and DoubleClick. Yes, there is a policy, and NLM appears to be pretty much in compliance with that policy.
2. You might also wonder if Google has a special agreement for use of its services on US government websites. It does, but that agreement doesn't amend privacy policies. And yes, the person signing that policy for Google subsequently became the third CTO of the United States.
3.  I recently presented a webinar which covered the basics of advertising in digital libraries in the National Network of Libraries of Medicine [NNLM] "Kernal of Knowledge" series.
4. (8/16) Yes, this blog is served by Google. So if you start getting ads for privacy plug-ins...
5. (8/16) urlscan.io is a tool you can use to see what goes on under the cover when you search on PubMed. Tip from Gary Price.

97% of Research Library Searches Leak Privacy... and Other Disappointing Statistics.

...But first, some good news. Among the 123 members of the Association of Research Libraries, there are four libraries with almost secure search services that don't send clickstream data to Amazon, Google, or any advertising network. Let's now sing the praises of libraries at Southern Illinois University, University of Louisville, University of Maryland, and University of New Mexico for their commendable attention to the privacy of their users. And it's no fault of their own that they're not fully secure. SIU fails to earn a green lock badge because of mixed content issues in the CARLI service; while Louisville, Maryland and New Mexico miss out on green locks because of the weak cipher suite used by OCLC on their Worldcat Local installations. These are relatively minor issues that are likely to get addressed without much drama.

Over the weekend, I decided to try to quantify the extent of privacy leakage in public-facing library services by studying the search services of the 123 ARL libraries. These are the best funded and most prestigious libraries in North America, and we should expect them to positively represent libraries. I went to each library's on-line search facility and did a search for a book whose title might suggest to an advertiser that I might be pregnant. (I'm not!) I checked to see whether the default search linked to by the library's home page (as listed on the ARL website) was delivered over a secure connection (HTTPS). I checked for privacy leakage of referer headers from cover images by using Chrome developer tools (the sources tab). I used Ghostery to see if the library's online search used Google Analytics or not. I also noted whether advertising network "web beacons" were placed by the search session.

72% of the ARL libraries let Google look over the shoulder of every click by every user, by virtue of the pervasive use of Google Analytics. Given the commitment to reader privacy embodied by the American Library Association's code of ethics, I'm surprised this is not more controversial. ALA even sponsors workshops on "Getting Started with Google Analytics". To paraphrase privacy advocate and educator Dorothea Salo, the code of ethics does not say:

We protect each library user's right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted, except for Google Analytics.

While it's true that Google has a huge stake in maintaining the trust of users in their handling of personal information, and people seem to trust Google with their most intimate secrets, it's also true that Google's privacy policy puts almost no constraints on what Google (itself) can do with the information they collect. They offer strong commitments not to share personally identifiable information with other entities, but they are free to keep and use personally identifiable information. Google can associate Analytics-tracked library searches with personally identifiable information for any user that has a Google account; Libraries cannot be under the illusion that they are uninvolved with this data collection if they benefit from Google Analytics. (Full disclosure: many of the the web sites I administer also use Google Analytics.)

80% of the ARL libraries provide their default discovery tools to users without the benefit of a secure connection. This means that any network provider in the path between the library and the user can read and alter the query, and the results returned to the user. It also means that when a user accesses the library over public wifi, such as in a coffee shop, the user's clicks are available for everyone else in the coffee shop to look at, and potentially to tamper with. (The Digital Library Privacy Pledge is not having the effect we had hoped for, at least not yet.)

28% of ARL libraries enrich their catalog displays with cover images sourced from Amazon.com. Because of privacy leakage in referer headers, this means that a user's searches for library books are available for use by Amazon when Amazon wants to sell that user something. It's not clear that libraries realize this is happening, or whether they just don't realize that their catalog enrichment service uses cover images sourced by Amazon.

13% of ARL libraries help advertisers (other than Google) target their ads by allowing web beacons to be placed on their catalog web pages. Whether the beacons are from Facebook, DoubleClick, AddThis or Sharethis, advertisers track individual users, often in a personally identifiable way. Searches on these library catalogs are available to the ad networks to maximize the value of advertising placed throughout their networks.

Much of the privacy leakage I found in my survey occurs beyond the control of librarians. There are IT departments, vender-provided services, and incumbent bureaucracies involved. Important library services appear to be unavailable in secure versions. But specific, serious privacy leakage problems that I've discussed with product managers and CTOs of library automation vendors have gone unfixed for more than a year. I'm getting tired of it.

The results of my quick survey for each of the 123 ARL libraries are available as a Google Sheet. There are bound to be a few errors, and I'd love to be able to make changes as privacy leaks get plugged and websites become secure, so feel free to leave a comment.