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Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

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Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#331

Post by abarwick »

einpoklum wrote: post #235
abarwick wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just naive. Government offices/agencies are so tightly coupled with packages like office 365 that forcefully separating them would require home built solutions which would always be terrible, less secure, and more expensive to the tax payer. There’s a lot of good these products can provide, granted they are properly audited and have high security requirements.

> are so tightly coupled with packages like office 365 Are they though? Do you know this for a fact? I mean, sure, MS Office is very popular in government settings, but does this really go beyond the possibility of just replacing it with LibreOffice if they so decided?

I obviously can’t speak for all, even most, but back in my consulting days I can say the many US federal and state agencies use Azure AD and a litany of AWS services that are core to vital work streams. Enough that having to shut them down would neuter the department.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#332

Post by aliasxneo »

Swenrekcah wrote: post #133
aliasxneo wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To website visitors: if you see a cookie banner, the site is asking permission to spy on you. If that concerns you, close the tab. There was a recent ACM article on this. They found there was a large number of sites that don't actually ask permission for anything, they are simply informing you of the spying. Not surprisingly, the ones that did allow modifying cookies were all setup in a predatory fashion which disc…

It’s because they’re allowed to use the word “cookies” for it. If they were required to use specific wording, like for instance “injecting surveillance artefacts” people would probably care a bit more.

Not necessarily. The team that wrote the ACM article did a small user-test using various versions of the "disable cookie" banner. In all cases they concluded that the user was indeed aware of the negative impact of cookies, however, the need to just "get back to the content" often overruled that distaste.

Not surprisingly, the most effective banner they found was the one which had a single "disable all cookies" button. It was something like an 80% hit rate. So, people care, but not enough to dig into another prompt to uncheck a bunch of boxes. This is what the ACM writers referred to as predatory (abusing human nature).

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#333

Post by abarwick »

scarface74 wrote: post #298
quantum_magpie wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if no one does anything, in 5 years it will be a 1000, in 10 years 5000. As it is right now, the only voice governments hear is that of corpos, and corpos want to preserve the influence of corpos. That's why we need to force the ban on corpo influence. I'd rather pay 1% gdp for a one-time migration to open and free software than pay .01% gdp per corp per year.

Are you going to also train staff to use the new open source software? Where is the open source SalesForce equivalent? Workday? Concur? Device management? Email service? ServiceNow? Time tracking? Photoshop? Are you going to also force every employee to use Linux instead of Mac and Windows? Are you going to tell them to rewrite all of their software and business processes written on top of Oracle and SQL Server? Shou…

Simply training government workers to use open source tools would shut down governments for weeks.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#335

Post by quadrifoliate »

spoonjim wrote: post #315
jcelerier wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk here in France there are cities and state-wide administrations with free/libre stacks based on Linux, LibreOffice, Zimbra and others and things seem to JustWork™. For instance the french Gendarmerie, the cities of Rennes and Arles...

Are there any high functioning large companies that use Linux/LibreOffice/Zimbra? I suppose governments rarely aspire to be high functioning.

Using Libre Office rather than Office 365 is unlikely to be the limiting factor in how fast anything in a government office is going to run.

In fact, I bet you that a major part of the delays in Government are because Tom from IT needs a sign off from three separate people to get a new Office 365 license for Brenda in accounting.

With Libre Office you make that a thing of the past.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#336

Post by jeremyjh »

tensor wrote: post #299
leephillips wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know the difference between cookies and a cookie banner? Do you understand why this site can have login sessions, and even keep track of the number of unique visitors, yet is not required to have a cookie banner?

Have you researched to know if this site is hosted on a US server? I wouldn't be surprised if it is and I also wouldn't be surprised if your IP address was additionally stored in a log somewhere for a period of time. In the US.

Yes but they are not tracking you with third party services, so regardless of where the server is they would not need a banner. The banner is a request for surveillance permission.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#337

Post by clairity »

adamrezich wrote: post #266
clairity wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i wrote a few sentences on a large civic concept, not a treatise, so let's not jump to ideological conclusions quite yet. but yes, i'm explicitly against governments sharing private data with corporations, no matter how convenient it might seem to be for workers. governments have run for centuries without those conveniences, so it's not a dichotomous choice of share all the data or not have schools (for instance). a…

> a lot of data sharing is driven by the misguided desire to control (that is, to centralize power), whether it be teachers, students, or administrators, not for actual educational outcomes, despite the latter being the nominal impetus. I have yet to see this occur. instead, it's all about bureaucratic convenience. why hire more people for Student Transportation to keep bus routes straight, and deal with printing out…

not trying to be mean, but it's one thing to acknowledge the status quo, and another to acquiesce. that's exactly how we collectively slide into decay and corruption.

homeschooling might fix the short term, but it helps no one else and probably not your kids' long term. speaking up, debating alternative solutions, supporting better legislation, even making your own job harder will help you and all your neighbors in the long run. we each need to call out governments and corporations for their misdeeds, all the time, whenever we see it. being a citizen is a responsibility, not a right.

(also, i don't see ads and don't give data willingly to the likes of google)

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#338

Post by ekianjo »

abarwick wrote: post #123
clairity wrote: post #117

i’d support any legislation that booted google, fb, ms, adobe, salesforce, and a whole host of other surveillance tech companies from any and all levels of government. it’s literally as important as the separation of church and state. in fact, i’d love to see a constitutional amendment explicitly separating corporate interests from governmental ones, in all facets of civic life (e.g., campaign finance).

This is just naive. Government offices/agencies are so tightly coupled with packages like office 365 that forcefully separating them would require home built solutions which would always be terrible, less secure, and more expensive to the tax payer. There’s a lot of good these products can provide, granted they are properly audited and have high security requirements.

your whole argument is based on the assumption that proprietary software is superior in every single metric. thats just patently false.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#339

Post by NavinF »

sam0x17 wrote: post #254
abarwick wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just naive. Government offices/agencies are so tightly coupled with packages like office 365 that forcefully separating them would require home built solutions which would always be terrible, less secure, and more expensive to the tax payer. There’s a lot of good these products can provide, granted they are properly audited and have high security requirements.

Sounds like it would create jobs too, that's a plus not a minus lol

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#340

Post by hutzlibu »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #335
spoonjim wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any high functioning large companies that use Linux/LibreOffice/Zimbra? I suppose governments rarely aspire to be high functioning.

Using Libre Office rather than Office 365 is unlikely to be the limiting factor in how fast anything in a government office is going to run. In fact, I bet you that a major part of the delays in Government are because Tom from IT needs a sign off from three separate people to get a new Office 365 license for Brenda in accounting. With Libre Office you make that a thing of the past.

"Using Libre Office rather than Office 365 is unlikely to be the limiting factor in how fast anything in a government office is going to run."

Depends. When odf would be the standard maybe, but it isn't. Standard is microsoft office, and libre office is not 100% compatible. But you will still have to deal with lots of microsoft documents, from all the other agencies, ordinary people, companies, ..

Meaning, when Munichs government tried to switch to oss a few years ago, they did indeed lost a lot of time with broken documents, templates, layouts etc. so they ultimately switched back (direct microsoft lobbying with even Bill Gates getting personally involved might have played a role, too).

So I am all for an open standard, but this easier said, than done.

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