I mostly use an interpretive approach to the qualitative research carried out in this thesis. Interpretive research approaches are commonly used within qualitative analysis, and is subjective, involves multiple constructed realities, and understanding of context and values to establish its claims. It assumes that social constructions govern the way that reality is accessed, and attempts to gain ``an understanding of the information system, and the process whereby the information system influences and is influenced by context'' [Walsham, 1993]. The use of case studies (in Chapter 2) in particular allows for an in-depth analysis of particular examples of the problem with current informed consent practices. I also use case studies in later chapters, analysing the characteristics of current approaches to informed consent in information technology as they are embedded within their context. This allows for a rich and thorough analysis but carries the limitation that the case studies could lead to generalisations that are not representative (because of their focus on particular cases which may not end up being representative of the greater number of cases), or lead to a lack of generalisability (because of the specific contexts and thus framings of these cases) [Darke & Shanks, 2000,Yin, 1993]. This can be mitigated somewhat by definitively establishing the boundaries of impact for such a study, as is done within this thesis, through not only studying a random sample of cases, but studying high profile cases of ubiquity (such as Microsoft and Apple), as well as extreme cases (such as Zango). Since I am concerned mostly with the potential for poor consent practices, finding case studies to show that these potentials are in fact present in reality only serves to strengthen my case.