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Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

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Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#111

Post by ahel »

JohnFen wrote: post #86
mpeg wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those really stand out as being problematic. Google Analytics, Hotjar are measurement tools. CSE is google's custom search endpoint, stats.*.doubleclick.net is a doubleclick for publishers endpoint (Google's ad server) and doesn't mean much by itself, it doesn't automatically show ads from third parties or send your data to anyone. The Facebook tags are sadly quite popular these days, I do agree those are not…

GA is absolutely problematic. It's one of Google's main spy mechanisms. I know less about Hotjar, but it's reasonable to be nervous about any analytics package that is sending data off to a third party.

LOL you're in for a treat if you don't know hotjar and think that GA is problematic! Hotjar tracks(or used to at least) every mouse movement and click on a site so that you could analyze what happened to your clients or perspective ones.

Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#112

Post by JohnFen »

ahel wrote: post #111
JohnFen wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GA is absolutely problematic. It's one of Google's main spy mechanisms. I know less about Hotjar, but it's reasonable to be nervous about any analytics package that is sending data off to a third party.

LOL you're in for a treat if you don't know hotjar and think that GA is problematic! Hotjar tracks(or used to at least) every mouse movement and click on a site so that you could analyze what happened to your clients or perspective ones.

Yes, I'm aware of that aspect of Hotjar. What I meant was that I don't know what Hotjar does with the collected data (beyond what they offer to the sites that use it).

Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#113

Post by wnoise »

tssva wrote: post #96
wnoise wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That would be blackmail. Extortion is "the practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats." Brave extorts websites by threatening to block the site's choosen revenue stream and to instead earn revenues from visitors to the site unless the site uses Brave to funnel their revenues. I don't have an issue with ad blockers or alternative payment methods but the way Brave combines the two in my…

Sure, I was focusing on the blackmail subset of extortion, because (a) this posting was discussing their releasing of information and (b) they can't actually use any force or threats of force. Helping their users decline to provide tracking information on unless they and their users get a cut is also not extortion, because the website owners don't have a right to that information.

You seem to believe that owners of websites have a natural right to their chosen business model, even if others don't wish to help enable that business model.

Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#114

Post by jsmith99 »

weekay wrote: post #72

What is interesting is the fact that none of the revenue / income from advertising if any, is showing in the accounts of the council. Checked a few at random and none of the account statements mention income from ads. Begs the question then not just of moral bankruptcy but of accounting this. If it's not implemented for income to the council then why ?

They would be unlikely to report an income stream seperately unless it was material. Materiality is a matter of judgement but most auditors would use about 1% of revenue.

Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#115

Post by JohnFen »

dspillett wrote: post #87
JohnFen wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So block tracking, not ads.

Unfortunately the two are often intimately linked, so that is not really practical.

I'm not sure what you mean. You're right that the two are usually intimately linked. What I've found by blocking tracking is that as a result of this intertwining, blocking tracking usually also blocks the advertising engaging in the spying.

I don't use an adblocker. I block tracking. It's pretty nearly as effective as an adblocker, so that seems practical to me.

Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#116

Post by adwww »

Scoundreller wrote: post #77
toyg wrote: post #69

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…

That kind of fiscal « downloading » is also a way to keep wealth within your council, and poor areas can just get bent because they’ll have more needs, but the least ability to get revenue. (If council’s primary revenue source is council tax within their own council).

That would be nice... but councils can only increase tax by <2% per year, and most of their revenue comes from a 'grant' by central government, which has been cut ~40% in the last decade.

Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#117

Post by lbriner »

pier25 wrote: post #73
weekay wrote: post #72

What is interesting is the fact that none of the revenue / income from advertising if any, is showing in the accounts of the council. Checked a few at random and none of the account statements mention income from ads. Begs the question then not just of moral bankruptcy but of accounting this. If it's not implemented for income to the council then why ?

Maybe there is a document somewhere that enforces certain practices when making websites for public institutions?

Unfortunately not, otherwise it would be easier to enforce consistency. The simple truth is that councils like many companies are not specialist developers but are expected to run high-quality web applications. Add in some Consultants who may have conflicting interests or lack of knowledge, semi-skilled staff, a friend-of-a-friend who told you to use X on your site, third-party web developers and a marketing team who need the "analytics" and you end up with this mess.

Like many companies, GDPR seems right down the list. The most troubling part of all for me was that the ICO acknowledged the illegality but didn't follow up. Sums up Britain to a tee!

(I'm a Brit)

Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#118

Post by dijksterhuis »

wopian wrote: post #51
dijksterhuis wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

Is the cookie used for the site to function (or a component of it) or for tracking/ads. Only the latter needs consent.

Is a session cookie with datetime of access (and last visit somehow), so probably fine.

not up on cookies and Gdpr tbh, I deal with other types of data normally.

Re: Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]

#120

Post by mattlondon »

toyg wrote: post #69

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…

The tax burden is high. They could certainly do with reducing it in my personal opinion.

A leaflet comes through the door every year or so telling me how much they spend in the local council. Usually the highest amount is not on schools, not on libraries, not on health, not on sweeping the streets or maintaining parks and playgrounds etc, but on "adult social care" (1) which as far as I know is a euphemism for benefits handouts for the baby-boomer generation.

It feels to me like an unrealistic burden is being placed on the current working generation to gold-plate the retirements of the current pensioners (because they tend to vote a lot), who frankly have got it pretty fucking good (not just free university education, but they got grants (i.e. free money), were able to purchase cheap and decent quality housing at relatively low salary multiples (e.g. detached 4 bed in nice areas for 3x average salary in the 60s & 70s), excellent pensions (often from the public sector), free travel, free tv licenses, jumping to the front of the queue in the NHS, free money for heating their homes etc etc, the pension triple-lock of a guaranteed 2.5% increase at a minimum etc, when working age people are lucky to get anything in their gig/zero-hours contract etc).

There has been talk of inter-generationalfairness a bit (at least before brexit took over). I hope something is done.

1 - https://engage.barnet.gov.uk/1730/documents/1919

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