EU Citizens Being Tracked on Sensitive Government Sites (ft.com) 58
EU governments are allowing more than 100 advertising companies, including Google and Facebook, to surreptitiously track citizens across sensitive public sector websites, in apparent violation of their own EU data protection rules, a study has found. From a report: Danish browser-analysis company Cookiebot found ad trackers -- which log users' locations, devices and browsing behaviours for advertisers -- on the official government websites of 25 EU member states [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source]. The French government had the highest number of ad trackers on its site, with 52 different companies tracking users' behaviour. Google, YouTube and DoubleClick, Google's advertising platform, accounted for three of the top five tracking domains on 22 of the main government websites. Researchers also studied the websites for EU public health services, finding that people seeking health advice on sensitive topics such as abortion, HIV and mental illness were met with commercial ad trackers on more than half of the sites analysed.
Taking a page out of the Russian playbook (Score:1)
It seems that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Hypocrites as usual. (Score:1, Troll)
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The EU has done immense good for EU citizens. Many of the rights we enjoy at work come from the EU and it's unlikely our national governments would have introduced them without the EU wide harmonization and the economic benefits that come from membership as an incentive.
Look at things like GDPR. Massively pro-citizen, it forces corporations to treat your data properly. We don't have the massive problems they have in the US with things like robocalls or companies selling personal data to the lowest bidder, b
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We don't have the massive problems they have in the US
Here in the US we don't have massive problems. Those bits all just slide around like a greased pig -- no problems whatsoever.
It may be your data but it's our bits, and which do you think is more important?
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EU democracy and government worries me a fair bit. But the EU (and the EEG before it, and the ECSC before that) have done quite a bit for international commerce.
That's the heart of it. What's valuable is a uniform set of trade treaties. Good luck getting that without a central government ever-growing in power. The US didn't even make it 100 years before "the United States are" became "the United States is" (though perhaps that joke is lost on our British brethren).
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Much better. No hassle with borders, free roaming on the GSM net, many things are standardized in all of the EU which is handy for manufacturers, etc. And we haven't had a war in more than 70 years, which is long for Europe. Of course the EU is not a perfect government system and there is a lot to improve but it certainly has brought its inhabitants a lot of economic development and safety. Just look at the whole Brexit procedure to get an idea of life before the EU.
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Hah, not a war in 70 years. We helped you with the bombing of Libya (yes, that was your war; you asked us for help). That's nice that your counties have given up sovereignty to unelected politicians in Brussels. You have democratic "representation" but they have no power; the real power in Brussels is unelected. So, as nations go, all you retain is passports; you can't even write your own tax laws. So, not really different than US states, except, of course, that the last war we had, by your definition, ende
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*) Following the referendums rejecting the previous document.
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The TCE made an effort to simplify jargon and reduce the number of EU legal instruments. However, it is a long document couched in technical terms, which proved unpopular when presented (for example) to French voters in their referendum on the TCE.
The original TCE was already too complicated to be a constitution in the traditional sense. The new treaties made matters even worse.
Re: Hypocrites as usual. (Score:2)
And we haven't had a war in more than 70 years, which is long for Europe.
Just ignore that whole Balkan region ... nothing to see there ...
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That wasn’t in the EU. It was in Europe though, and I still think it’s a big disgrace that Clinton was the first to try and do anything about it. It was a European question that should have been handled by the EU.
Re:Hypocrites as usual. (Score:5, Informative)
This isn't the EU, it's individual member states' governments not complying with EU data protection rules.
The EU is the one telling these governments to stop allowing companies to track citizens using their web sites. The EU is making things better.
It's incredible how even when the EU is doing the right thing it gets blamed somehow. Just think about how wrong your view of the EU is that you leapt to this conclusion without apparently even reading the summary, which clearly states that it is member states' web sites at issue.
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This isn't the EU, it's individual member states' governments not complying with EU data protection rules.
To be fair, Cookiebot did not do any testing on europa.eu or other official EU sites for this report. That we lack evidence of tracking (because no testing was done) does not mean that those sites lack tracking. But because I was curious, I had Cookiebot fire off a compliance test on europa.eu while I quickly perused it to see if I could find anything that loaded third-party resources from the usual bad actors. Sure enough, it didn't take me long to land on a page that attempted to load images [europa.eu] from Facebook
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In order to get to the page you cite, you've explicitly followed the "social networks" page link, which you'd expect to have information about social networks given the title. This is a bit different from having trackers on totally unrelated pages.
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In order to get to the page you cite, you've explicitly followed the "social networks" page link, which you'd expect to have information about social networks given the title.
Information? Absolutely. Third-party content that can be used to track users being loaded? Not necessarily. Moreover, regardless of what you or I might expect, that doesn't necessarily mean that it would be allowed.
Breaking News: US Citizens being tracked on pretty (Score:2)
Re: Breaking News: US Citizens being tracked on pr (Score:2)
Good advice (Score:1)
If stool becomes impacted or lodged in the rectum, mucus and fluid will leak out around the stool, leading to fecal incontinence. Call your health care provider if you have mucus or fluid leakage from the rectum.
Bet they didn't provide cookie notices (Score:2)
Re: Bet they didn't provide cookie notices (Score:2)
Slashdot can't fix anything. Just try using the site on mobile.
Not surprised ... (Score:1)
Honestly, at this point, the first time I hit a website (and often thereafter) the first thing I check for on a site is 3rd party shit which I block.
Facebook is blocked everywhere, and any analytic and ad companies get added to the list.
Hell, even the Financial Times article has 4
In semi-related news.... (Score:3)
The NSA stopped spying on US citizens
https://www.wired.com/2017/04/... [wired.com]
However, https://www.aclu.org/blog/nati... [aclu.org]
And https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying [eff.org]
Now who really thinks any government that spent a lot of taxpayer money to build spying capabilities on its taxpayers is going to stop it?
And if you think that is bad, lets put it in perspective. AI weaponry.... What's ethics? to those who are addicted to think, "if we don't do it someone else will and put us at a disadvantage"
This is why you block ads by default (Score:2)
Use a good VPN.
Block ads on your computer to keep the EU tracking out.
Reduced the ability of the EU to track your internet usage.
Subject to GDPR, no? (Score:2)
I would expect those governments of the offending websites should be dealt with as per GDPR, therefore warned, fined, or however any other company violating GDPR is supposed be dealt with. Unless of course EU governments believe that their own laws don't apply to them. This should tell us. Wouldn't be the first government which believed they are above the law.