In an op-ed for Scientific American, Electronic Frontier Foundation Managing Director for Technology Gennie Gebhart and Media Relations Director Josh Richman write researchers are "inadvertently" covering for a "massive privacy invasion" by data brokers buying and selling location data. "Researchers must carefully consider whether such data make them accomplices to this dubious practice," Gebhart and Richman said. "Academic data sharing programs will remain disingenuous public relations ploys until companies obey data privacy and transparency requirements."