Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#61

Post by mpeg » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

chriswarbo wrote: post #57

mpeg wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the alternative here? Should Enfield spend tax payer money creating an alternative tool to show banner ad cross-promotions and re-training their teams? Where do you stop? Is Google Analytics evil too? What about Twitter feeds?

> Where do you stop? Is Google Analytics evil too? Absolutely. > What about Twitter feeds? In what context? Including/embedding Twitter cookies and/or Javascript in pages paid-for by citizens, which citizens are required to use to exercise their rights? Absolutely. As a non-exclusive outlet to disseminate information via an independent site (twitter.com), which anyone is free to avoid and ignore? That's fine.

In reality, what happens is lots of council services (including police) use twitter as the main real-time source of information for citizens.

Should they use an alternative platform? probably not, because twitter is the biggest and best known, so you could argue you can reach the most people with it.

Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#62

Post by gumby » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

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 that a downside?

Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#63

Post by nottorp » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

[quote] This report should spur Elizabeth Denham, the UK Information Commissioner, to finally enforce the GDPR. It is 17 months since formal evidence from Brave and complaints about breaches of data protection laws were filed before the ICO. [/quote]

Oh really? Hello BRexit?

Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#64

Post by shaoonb » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

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,…

Why does Enfield council need to use adtech tracking to optimise their ads for other services? It's not like they are competing with anyone to deliver the most efficient services by fractions of a percent. Surely basic keyword targeted or completely untargeted ads are all they need.

Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#65

Post by chriswarbo » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

throwawaylolx wrote: post #34

sandwell wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> is "real-time bidding" an otherwise uncommon ad strategy that is relatively specific to the these websites?

The alarm does not come from the technology being uncommon, it comes from these sites being uncommon. In particular, there aren't many sites which millions of people may rely-on/be-directed-to in order to exercise their rights (e.g. to healthcare and social services), or even for their life or their friend's/family's.

The argument of "if you don't like it, don't use it" doesn't apply here. It's especially egregious that these sites are built and operated using public money, so we're paying for it regardless.

Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#66

Post by whalesalad » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

I guess the irony of a 'tweet this' href after every single bullet point was lost on the author.

Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#67

Post by thomasedwards » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

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!

Probably something to do with the fact that central government has cut budgets for the last 10 years and if putting some banner ads on their website contributes to keeping a library open, it’s hard to say no.

Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#68

Post by wnoise » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

tssva wrote: post #47

eclipxe wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brave's business model is fear mongering.

And extortion.

Extortion would be threatening to reveal bad acts, in order to gain something from those threatened. If they always reveal bad acts, and don't even try to gain anything from the bad actors -- well, that's just plainly not extortion, nor even criminal in any way.

Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#69

Post by toyg » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

Council are the victims here. They are forced to debase themselves because central government, in the Tory era since 2010, simply offloads competencies to local authorities, without allocating extra funds or even slashing existing ones. So the priority has become to keep the lights on and find every way possible to monetize anything remotely monetizable, from parking to this (as well as cutting tons of jobs, closing libraries and so on). Councils are literally going bankrupt, but voters can’t make the link and keep voting for “low taxes” in Westminster and “the Council should do everything” at home, then complain when pigs can’t manage to lift off and fly.

Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#70

Post by gniv » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

nottorp wrote: post #63

[quote] This report should spur Elizabeth Denham, the UK Information Commissioner, to finally enforce the GDPR. It is 17 months since formal evidence from Brave and complaints about breaches of data protection laws were filed before the ICO. [/quote] Oh really? Hello BRexit?

> Hello BRexit?

I was curious about this and searched a bit. According to this website [1] the GDPR is still in force until the end of the year, and in addition there is a UK-GDPR law, very similar to the EU GDPR, which took effect on Feb 1st. So there are two regulations now, not zero.

[1] https://www.cookiebot.com/en/uk-gdpr/