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How would a website “respond” without human interaction? If all they were testing was whether or not a website had an automated response to emails with ccpa in the subject or body they could have included a disclaimer at the end of the email about what they were doing.

This was clearly seeking a human response and is a human experiment.

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That's not the definition of human subjects research. Not everything that involves a human responding to questions is human subjects research. A lot of comments in this thread are uninformed about the relevant definitions.

You can think the study is poorly designed, unethical, etc. But if they're not obtaining data about a living individual, then it's not human subjects research.

You appear to be the one uninformed about the definition of human subject research.

>But if they're not obtaining data about a living individual, then it's not human subjects research.

Sure, if you completely ignore the other half of the definition, per the NIH:

https://grants.nih.gov/policy/humansubjects/research.htm

> Obtains information or biospecimens through intervention or interaction with the individual, and uses, studies, or analyzes the information or biospecimens;

They are absolutely collecting information to analyze by interacting with the individual.

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