Health information websites offer instantaneous access to information, but have important privacy implications as they can associate a visitor with specific medical conditions. We interviewed 35 residents of Canada to better understand whether and how online health information seekers exercise three potential means of protection against surveillance: website selection, privacy-enhancing technologies, and self-censorship, as well as their understanding of web tracking. Our findings reveal how users' limited initiative and effectiveness in protecting their privacy could be associated with a missing or inaccurate understanding of how implicit data collection by third parties takes place on the web, and who collects the data. We conclude that to help Internet users achieve better self-data protection, we may need to shift privacy awareness efforts from what information is collected to how it is collected.

翻译：健康信息网站虽能提供即时信息访问，却存在重大隐私隐患，因为它们可将访客与特定医疗状况相关联。我们访谈了35位加拿大居民，以深入探究在线健康信息寻求者是否及如何运用三种潜在防护手段应对监控：网站选择、隐私增强技术和自我审查，以及他们对网络追踪的认知。研究结果表明，用户隐私保护主动性不足与防护效果有限，可能与他们对第三方如何在网络上进行隐性数据收集及数据收集者身份存在认知缺失或误解有关。我们得出结论：为帮助互联网用户实现更有效的个人数据保护，隐私意识教育的重点可能需要从"收集何种信息"转向"信息如何被收集"。