SPARC Releases Second Vendor Privacy Report Urging Action to Address Concerns with SpringerLink Data Privacy Practices - SPARC

"Today, SPARC released our second vendor privacy analysis: Navigating Risk in Vendor Data Privacy Practices: An Analysis of Springer Nature’s SpringerLink. Produced in collaboration with Becky Yoose of LDH Consulting Services, this analysis builds on our ScienceDirect report published last year and documents a variety of practices that undermine library privacy standards.

SpringerLink provides a case study in the encroachment of the broader surveillance-based data brokering economy into academic systems. Among other findings, the report documents risks related to the 200 named third parties that are allowed to collect information from users of the site (along with what appear to be additional unlisted companies found only in our public website analysis). While the specific privacy concerns posed by SpringerLink are different, our analysis reiterates the findings from our ScienceDirect report: that user tracking that would be unthinkable in a physical library setting now happens routinely through publisher platforms...."