HHS Privacy Loss Not a Green Light for Health-Care Web Tracking

The Health and Human Services Department’s decision to drop its appeal of a district court’s invalidation of the agency’s web-tracking technology restrictions did little to untangle the legal uncertainty for those health-care companies using the tools.

The agency’s decision to pull its appeal Aug. 29 seemingly cleared the path for some health-care providers mired in litigation to continue using web-tracking technology, which HHS had said could tie website visitors to medical conditions and other sensitive data under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. But the impact of HHS’ backtrack from its Fifth Circuit appeal isn’t so clear cut, and ...