The advent of online pharmacies and health related information and purchasing online puts individuals in the position of a customer in the market place, able to make choices among the products marketed to them by commercial firms, rather than a patient subject to the authoritative guidance of professionals. The exercise of consumer choice and the need for the purchaser to take more responsibility to verify that the medicines available are what they claim to be is highly significant. In some cases consumers are making decisions without consulting health professionals. There is conflict between the value of individuals being able to pursue their own interests and the values of efforts by the state to reduce harm, use public resources fairly and efficiently, and social solidarity.

In providing a new opportunity to purchase medicine the Web appears to remove or bypass some of the threats and sanctions normally associated with illegal drug purchasing, though the reality is that the risks have not been reduced but are simply more clandestine. The study of the Web is necessarily multidisciplinary – we need to understand the technology and the way people and society use and shape it. Web science and innovative methodological approaches can assist our understanding of these emerging digital behaviours.

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