NORTH CAROLINA JOURNAL OF LAW & TECHNOLOGY Volume 19 | Issue 1 Article 1 1-1-2018 Health Privacy and (Lack Of) Legal Protections In a Technology-Driven Economy Mystica M. Alexander Cheryl Kirschner Patrick A. Sholten David J. Yates Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/ncjolt Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Mystica M. Alexander, Cheryl Kirschner, Patrick A. Sholten & David J. Yates, Health Privacy and (Lack Of) Legal Protections In a Technology-Driven Economy, 19 N.C. J.L. & Tech. 1 (2018). Available at: https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/ncjolt/vol19/iss1/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Carolina Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in North Carolina Journal of Law & Technology by an authorized editor of Carolina Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. NORTH CAROLINA JOURNAL OF LAW & TECHNOLOGY VOLUME 19, ISSUE 1: OCTOBER 2017 HEALTH PRIVACY AND (LACK OF) LEGAL PROTECTIONS IN A TECHNOLOGY-DRIVEN ECONOMY Mystica M. Alexander, Cheryl Kirschner, Patrick A. Scholten, David J. Yates* Applying the perspectives of law, technology, and economics, this article explores the privacy concerns arising from the ability of search engines and web domain owners to indiscriminately track an individual’s health-related internet searches. Using the hypothetical example of a forty-year-old woman diagnosed with high cholesterol who turns to Google to begin gathering data about her condition and her treatment options, this article discusses the many ways in which technology can be used to gather, store, aggregate, and track an unsuspecting user’s health- related searches as she surfs the web for information.