> this is clearly not an exempt study, which is a category of its own that the IRB reviews and makes a judgment on. The authors would immediately have been able to point out the protocol number of the exempt study if it were exempt. Rather it's not considered human subjects as the authors clearly state on their FAQ.
Please don't use such circular logic. We're debating whether the research properly qualifies as human subject research; we're not debating about what the IRB actually decided on that question, because they may have gotten it wrong.
> then we would be in agreement, and it'd be more obvious that the subject is, in fact, the website's policies/procedures.
The policy itself is certainly the intended subject of the research. But the methods they've chosen mean they are also collecting and analyzing information about the responses of real live humans to their interactions and interventions, and that qualifies this as human subject research irrespective of the naive intentions of the researchers. Having a non-human subject does not preclude also having a human subject.
Please don't use such circular logic. We're debating whether the research properly qualifies as human subject research; we're not debating about what the IRB actually decided on that question, because they may have gotten it wrong.
> then we would be in agreement, and it'd be more obvious that the subject is, in fact, the website's policies/procedures.
The policy itself is certainly the intended subject of the research. But the methods they've chosen mean they are also collecting and analyzing information about the responses of real live humans to their interactions and interventions, and that qualifies this as human subject research irrespective of the naive intentions of the researchers. Having a non-human subject does not preclude also having a human subject.