Health care Web sites have access to an unprecedented amount of personal information about consumers. What are their policies about the privacy of that information? How easily can consumers find and understand these policies? Do they afford sufficient protection? And do the actual practices of the health sites reflect their stated policies?

This report, published in January 2000, presents a profile of the policies and practices of 21 health-related Web sites. The sites were selected to represent a mix of the most trafficked consumer health sites at the time of the study.