Merck & Co.
Health Care
60
out of 100. Number 122 of 512, counting from the worst.
Where Merck & Co. does well
- Renewals 0 of 20. Nothing found.
- Merck recognizes Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control signals and treats them as opt-out of sale/sharing for that browser/device and associated profiles.
- It explicitly does NOT sell or share personal information of individuals under 18, and says it does not sell names or email addresses — only cookie/browsing data.
- Small-claims court is carved out of the arbitration clause (individual basis).
- For privacy-policy changes, Merck says material changes will get direct contact where it has your details plus pre-effective-date posting — a stronger notice commitment than the browsewrap terms.
- The company maintains EU Binding Corporate Rules and EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework certification, and offers a dedicated rights portal (dsr.msd.com) with an appeal process if a privacy request is denied.
Patients merely visiting Merck's websites give up the right to sue or join a class action.
The fine print
8 clauses and findings from the draft archive, dated 1 October 2026. The plain English comes first; the small print is the company's own words. None of these has been checked yet.
-
Patients merely visiting Merck's websites give up the right to sue or join a class action. Before arbitrating you must send a written notice, then do a 60-day negotiation including an individual in-person/phone/videoconference meet-and-confer. If you miss a 1-year deadline to start arbitration, your claim is barred forever.
BY AGREEING TO THESE TERMS OF USE, YOU AGREE TO AN ARBITRATION CLAUSE AND A CLASS ACTION WAIVER THAT AFFECTS YOUR RIGHTS. IT REQUIRES THAT DISPUTES BE RESOLVED INDIVIDUALLY IN BINDING ARBITRATION OR SMALL CLAIMS COURT... Any disputes... that are not resolved informally shall be resolved exclusively by final binding arbitration... Under no circumstances does Merck consent to have any Disputes arbitrated using class action procedures... YOU OR MERCK MUST START ARBITRATION OF A DISPUTE WITHIN ONE (1) YEAR FROM WHEN THE DISPUTE FIRST AROSE... THE FAILURE TO BEGIN ARBITRATION REGARDING A DISPUTE WITHIN THE TIME FRAMES DESCRIBED ABOVE IN THIS SECTION SHALL BAR THE DISPUTE.
-
If many people have similar complaints, Merck can slow-roll them through a bellwether process where each side picks test cases — and if settlement fails, you can LOSE the right to arbitrate entirely and get funneled into New Jersey courts, while paying your own share of mass-arbitration fees.
If 25 or more Disputes are initiated... these will be considered 'Coordinated Cases.'... Merck will pay only its share of arbitration fees for Coordinated Cases; claimants will be responsible for their share... demands for arbitration in Coordinated Cases shall only be filed... as permitted by the bellwether process... You agree that if your case is among Coordinated Cases... resolution of your personal claim might be delayed by this bellwether process... If the mediation does not yield a global resolution, claimants in Coordinated Cases... shall no longer have the right to arbitrate their Dispute.
-
Anything you send a Merck website — questions, comments, suggestions, even health-related questions on patient pages — becomes Merck's property outright, to use, publish, or share with no limits. (Only items covered by their U.S. privacy notices are excepted.)
Except for information covered by our U.S. privacy policy and U.S. Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy, any communication or materials you transmit to or through the Services, including data, comments, questions, suggestions, ideas, concepts, know-how, techniques, or the like, shall become the property of Merck. Merck shall be free to use, disclose, reproduce, or distribute any such communications or materials without limitation of any kind.
-
Any feedback or improvement ideas you submit, Merck can exploit commercially forever, anywhere, with no payment to you.
You hereby grant to us a perpetual, royalty-free, worldwide, and transferable right and license to use all feedback, suggestions, and improvements that you provide to us regarding the Services... for any purpose whatsoever, without restriction and without compensating you in any way.
-
Merck openly admits it 'sold' and 'shared' visitors' IP addresses and browsing data with ad networks and data analytics companies for targeted advertising in the past year. (It says it does not sell names or email addresses.)
Based on that definition, we "sell" and have "sold" in the past twelve months personal information collected via cookies and other tracking technologies, such as IP addresses and browsing data, including when we allow third parties, such as advertising networks and data analytics providers, to place certain types of cookies or other tracking technologies on our websites for marketing and analytics purposes. We also "share" and have "shared" in the past twelve months [the same] with third parties, such as advertising networks and data analytics providers, for targeted advertising.
-
Merck merges personal data collected across its many websites, apps, phone lines and surveys — linking patients with doctors, employees, pet owners and vendors — and tracks whether you open its emails; the only way to stop email-open tracking is to unsubscribe from the emails entirely.
in some cases we consolidate and use personal information that individuals share with us through various services and channels, such as the telephone, surveys, web sites and other online resources and communications, in order to enhance the quality of services that we offer. Potential data consolidation activities extend across the different data subject categories... employees, contractors, Healthcare Professionals, veterinarians, farmers, patients, pet owners or vendors... If you do not wish for us to confirm whether you have read certain email communications we have sent to you, you may opt out of email communications tracking by opting out of receiving those email communications altogether.
-
If Merck's blanket liability waiver doesn't hold up, its total liability to you is capped at ten dollars. Meanwhile Merck can cut off your access to its patient services at any time, for any reason.
IF ANY PART OF THIS LIMITATION ON LIABILITY IS FOUND TO BE INVALID OR UNENFORCEABLE FOR ANY REASON, THEN THE AGGREGATE LIABILITY OF THE RELEASED PARTIES FOR LIABILITIES THAT OTHERWISE WOULD HAVE BEEN LIMITED SHALL NOT EXCEED TEN DOLLARS ($10.00). ... Notwithstanding anything to the contrary herein, Merck may terminate your access to the Services and/or these Terms of Use for any reason following notice to you.
-
Merck can change the terms whenever it wants; 'notice' means posting it on the terms page itself — if you keep using the site, you're bound by the new terms whether or not you saw the update.
Merck reserves the right to change the Services, including by adding functionality or removing functionality of the Services, their offerings, and content at any time. Merck may also modify the Terms of Use from time to time, as necessary, and will provide notice on this page of any such changes, including the date they became effective.
How these were found
Documents read directly from official domains on Oct 1, 2026: (1) merck.com Terms of Use, last revised March 24, 2025 (full text fetched). (2) Global Internet Privacy Policy read via the South Africa-English locale URL (msdprivacy.com/za/en/internet-privacy-policy/, Review Date June 2025) because a US-locale URL returned 404; it is Merck's global policy document. (3) U.S. Supplemental Privacy Notice at msdprivacy.com/us/en/supp-notice (Last Updated June 2025, full text fetched). Note: MRK is Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ (merck.com / msdprivacy.com); German Merck KGaA (merckgroup.com) documents surfaced in search were excluded as a different company. No paid-subscription consumer product terms were found, so autorenew reflects absence of any consumer subscription mechanism. Quotes are verbatim from the fetched documents; slight elisions marked where noted.
These notes come from the original draft and are not independent verification.