UPDATE: * I had waited for the answer to my direct note to Jonathan Mayer and fell asleep. It arrived at 01:44 EST. This morning I replied to him. With a direct line of communication open, the letter higher up is on hold.
* They are currently not sending emails and will be publishing an FAQ soon. The issue that is relevant for mailop is, at least temporarily, defused. The feedback I have given them with regard to the spam issue is that: The study abused the mechanism created by the laws to deliver its questionnaire to an email address whose purpose is only to receive legal GDPR/CCPA requests. Maybe, on balance, such minor abuse could be tolerated as an efficient, low-cost shortcut to reach the person better placed to answer the study's questionnaire. However, the obfuscation of the sender; the use of fraudulent identities; the covert and indirect questions; all void any possible justification, whether the study does or does not constitute human subjects research. [...] (a) put your questions in a direct plain view survey form on the web instead of covering them up with hypothetical facts scenarios; (b) identify yourself as the sender instead of using covert domains and false identities; (c) use a strict opt-in logic: the first email is the last one unless the subject responds; and the first email has all the elements for the subject to make an informed consent decision. * On the big issue, the ENROLLMENT OF HUMAN SUBJECTS WITHOUT CONSENT into the study, I have been told that "[t]he IRB determined that our study does not constitute human subjects research." I do not have the reasons for such determination, but this is the fault line at the moment. I have offered to Jonathan my opinion that: The IRB's determination stands corrected (of course without admitting fault, given the litigious contest of the land). Behind every website there is an operator and in most cases, the end-operator is a human subject, or an organization within which a human subject bears ultimate responsibility for processing the study's emails. That human deserves respect [Belmont Report]. In the context of GDPR/CCPA, the mechanism they create and the obligations and sanctions they impose, the study as designed resulted in the ENROLLMENT OF HUMAN SUBJECTS WITHOUT CONSENT. It is work in progress. I am trying to identify who at Princeton would be the optimal recipient of my letter. A Researcher Misconduct Complaint to the DoF would only deal with the individual researcher's integrity and would not prevent the IRB from making further misguided decisions on the coerced enrollment of humans. At this time I am not seeking to punish the researchers. I wait to see how the dialog with Jonathan unfolds. On Thu, 2021-12-16 at 22:10 -0700, Grant Taylor via mailop wrote: > I don't buy the silly mistake. Not the second time around. [...] > But the fact that the student repeated the action and apparent lack > of caring completely negates both "silly" and "mistake" in my head. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-strikes_law -- Yuval Levy, JD, MBA, CFA Ontario-licensed lawyer _______________________________________________ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://list.mailop.org/listinfo/mailop
