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Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

brave.com

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Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#31

Post by jszymborski »

mpeg wrote: post #26
frou_dh wrote: post #6

Invisible trackers aside, it's simply gross that local government sites have banner ads on them. Have some pride and/or taste!

When you actually look at the sites, it's clear Brave hasn't done their homework or don't really understand the online ad ecosystem. For example, Enfield council ( enfield.gov.uk ) is using Google's ad server (DFP) set to show only internal ads. All their advertising is for cross-promoting projects and sites that Enfield council is involved with, including pest control, social lettings, a publicly-funded golf course,…

Right, but are you suggesting that the Google ad servers are not going to use that information to sell to these visitors on other websites that are showing ads from the GDN?

Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#32

Post by lozaning »

basilgohar wrote: post #27
butler14 wrote: post #20

This is one of the downsides of using an ad-blocker It's literally never occurred to me, as a user of these websites, that local government websites would even have adverts on them -- let alone Google AdSense / junk from Google's Display Network.

How is this a downside to using an ad-blocker? I think it's quite the opposite. An ad-blocker would prevent most of this external JS from being loaded.

I've so successfully created a personal technology environment that hides ads, that I have no situational awareness about what these companies are up to.

If someone out there is selling my healthcare data and running ads around it directed towards just me, I'd never know, but I'd want to.

Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#33

Post by choathedolls »

blibble wrote: post #25

I suspect the root cause of this issue is the average web developer not realising that including any third party javascript gives total control of the page to whoever controls the included URL

The average developer knows this even if you're an absolute lover of all things JS.

Whether or not the developers were forced to include them due to certain constraints is another issue.

Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#34

Post by throwawaylolx »

sandwell wrote: post #21
throwawaylolx wrote: post #18

The entire article and "report" are so aggressive that it makes it difficult to extract any nuance out of it other than that I should use Brave. Is the core issue that council websites are using real-time bidding for their ads? Is this specific to the UK?

> Is the core issue that council websites are using real-time bidding for their ads? Yes. These websites are used to support a variety of public services, e.g. disability, poverty, drugs, or alcoholism services. Brave believes that sending tracking information about people accessing this information is a breach of privacy.

And is "real-time bidding" an otherwise uncommon ad strategy that is relatively specific to the these websites? If it is, then I can understand the alarmism, but otherwise this news can be compressed to "UK council websites use targeted ads," right?

Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#35

Post by foxyv »

Advertising is starting to edge towards the side of "Universal Evil." We need some serious regulatory controls on this stuff because it is getting out of control. GDPR is a step in the right direction, but sites and advertisers are pretty much flouting it at this point.

Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#36

Post by dijksterhuis »

MrAlex94 wrote: post #5

So I have read this report, but it would be good if there were some example URLs of where this is happening. Take for instance Lambeth's website ( https://www.lambeth.gov.uk ). I've browsed through a few public facing pages and the council tax payment pages. The report says Lambeth shows 1 real time bidding, 1 social and 5 Google "trackers". From my network requests I see: -> Google Translate and its resources (CSS e…

I'm getting these additional requests. They're being blocked, so result in a warning message in the console. Didn't see anything in network requests for them.

- https://static.hotjar.com/c/hotjar-1043047.js?sv=5

- https://cse.google.com/adsense/search/async-ads.js

- https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js

Also, the site is setting a cookie even though I've not consented.

EDIT: Also, one of the lambeth.gov js scripts was written by "rob" in 2015. Hi Rob!

Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#37

Post by pavel_lishin »

basilgohar wrote: post #27
butler14 wrote: post #20

This is one of the downsides of using an ad-blocker It's literally never occurred to me, as a user of these websites, that local government websites would even have adverts on them -- let alone Google AdSense / junk from Google's Display Network.

How is this a downside to using an ad-blocker? I think it's quite the opposite. An ad-blocker would prevent most of this external JS from being loaded.

Can't wait for the bite if you don't hear the bark.

Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#38

Post by eclipxe »

jszymborski wrote: post #31
mpeg wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you actually look at the sites, it's clear Brave hasn't done their homework or don't really understand the online ad ecosystem. For example, Enfield council ( enfield.gov.uk ) is using Google's ad server (DFP) set to show only internal ads. All their advertising is for cross-promoting projects and sites that Enfield council is involved with, including pest control, social lettings, a publicly-funded golf course,…

Right, but are you suggesting that the Google ad servers are not going to use that information to sell to these visitors on other websites that are showing ads from the GDN?

Correct

Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#39

Post by eclipxe »

mpeg wrote: post #26
frou_dh wrote: post #6

Invisible trackers aside, it's simply gross that local government sites have banner ads on them. Have some pride and/or taste!

When you actually look at the sites, it's clear Brave hasn't done their homework or don't really understand the online ad ecosystem. For example, Enfield council ( enfield.gov.uk ) is using Google's ad server (DFP) set to show only internal ads. All their advertising is for cross-promoting projects and sites that Enfield council is involved with, including pest control, social lettings, a publicly-funded golf course,…

Brave's business model is fear mongering.

Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#40

Post by eclipxe »

foxyv wrote: post #35

Advertising is starting to edge towards the side of "Universal Evil." We need some serious regulatory controls on this stuff because it is getting out of control. GDPR is a step in the right direction, but sites and advertisers are pretty much flouting it at this point.

Why is it starting to edge towards "Universal Evil"?
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