[eli]

The false legal threat is particularly galling, but this absolutely should have gone through IRB even without it. Someone should have had to at least consider the impact on recipients of the messages before they were sent.

IRB review is typically required even for just simple research surveys.

[southerntofu]

How is a reminder of the law a legal threat? More specifically when you feel like you're not impacted by this law, it's as far from a legal threat as could be.

[amalcon]

Whether or not I feel I am impacted by a law has little to nothing to do with whether someone else will decide to sue or prosecute me based on it. Even if it's without merit, it's still an extreme hassle if that happens (and also very expensive).

[paranoidrobot]

> How is a reminder of the law a legal threat?

In the same way that "This is a nice place you've got here, it'd be a real shame if something were to happen to it", when spoken by a Mafia enforcer is most definitely a threat.

It's not, outright, threatening to bring a lawsuit, however the language of that last paragraph is definitely something which you'd expect to see from a lawyer in preparation for such legal action.

[southerntofu]

I'm not a lawyer, and i've both sent and received email like that over the years, none of which ever produced a legal action. That's standard procedure for private data requests.

[dsr_]

Either there's another nonconsensual experiment underway or a legal threat scam involving security bounties, because the phrasing of this Princeton email is very similar to the security bounty emails I keep getting... at my personal, static, blog.

[zebraflask]

It's obviously implying a threat if you're at all familiar with the legal sphere.

Passive-aggressive language, sure, but still not exactly inviting the recipient to a picnic, and passive-aggressive language doesn't get you off the hook.

Related, doesn't matter if it is completely without merit and could never succeed.

This entire story and thread is just something else. Talk about failing to meet even baseline ethical standards.

[southerntofu]

> It's obviously implying a threat if you're at all familiar with the legal sphere.

And if you're not a lawyer it's just a very normal message of someone trying to get answers and have their privacy rights respected. I've both sent and received many messages like this one over the years (CNIL requests) and there's nothing frightening about it.

> Talk about failing to meet even baseline ethical standards.

This study certainly meets my ethical standard of trying to hold corporations accountable to what they do with out data. I really don't see what the fuss is about: if freeradical.zone admin had received this email from anyone else (as could well be the case) would we even talk about it?

[desmosxxx]

You're wrong. The reaction to the email and apology from Princeton is proof of that, but there are also very few people here agree with you. I'm not a lawyer or a business man and I read the email as a clear legal threat. I had anxiety just reading it, the same as the OP.

It's clear as day. And if for whatever reason you don't see it that way the rest of the email and the way it's written should set off alarm bells as being a potential scam.