EU government websites have undisclosed adtech trackers from Google and others

Re:EU government websites have undisclosed adtech trackers f... by cromwellian on Monday March 18, 2019 @04:56PM (#19425191)

Isn't it a little disingenuous to call analytics tools "adtech". Yes, you can integrate analytics with adtech platforms, by even in isolation, knowing how your users use your own site and how they arrived there, allows you to better serve them.

In a physical place of business, for example, a retail store or restaurant, keeping track of what times or parts of the store were busiest, or where people spent the most time, would allow you to eliminate waste from your business, and sometimes that involves knowing how many unique customer foot traffic you're getting.

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Re:EU government websites have undisclosed adtech trackers f... by cwkoss on Monday March 18, 2019 @05:03PM (#19425277)

Is it possible to use google analytics without the resulting data being accessible by google ads or search teams? I would assume that they don't let you opt out of org-internal data sharing.

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Re:EU government websites have undisclosed adtech trackers f... by JangoSteve on Monday March 18, 2019 @05:12PM (#19425365)

There is technically a way to link/unlink Google Analytics from Google Ads:

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1704341?co=ADWO...

There are also ways to configure Google Analytics to fuzz IP addresses, essentially de-anonymizing them, as well as setting up explicit data retention periods.

EDIT (responding to grandparent comment): Even so, I'm not sure it's disingenuous to call products adtech which are provided by a company whose main business is advertising, and which are often configured to contribute to the advertising business, even if it's possible to use them for purposes other than advertising. At that point, maybe it's just adtech that's being repurposed.

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Re:EU government websites have undisclosed adtech trackers f... by kalyan02 on Monday March 18, 2019 @05:26PM (#19425490)

Absolutely. Corporate/Enterprise accounts can opt-out of it.

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Re:EU government websites have undisclosed adtech trackers f... by Nextgrid on Monday March 18, 2019 @06:14PM (#19425902)

I wouldn't trust any opt-out functionality from a company whose bottom line is based on harvesting as much data as possible off everyone.

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Re:EU government websites have undisclosed adtech trackers f... by inetknght on Monday March 18, 2019 @08:12PM (#19426711)

Moreover: opted-in should not be the default; I should not have to actively opt-out of anything in order to improve my internet security.

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Re:EU government websites have undisclosed adtech trackers f... by YokoZar on Tuesday March 19, 2019 @03:15AM (#19428734)

It is unethical to remember how someone was using your store without their explicit consent. It's their data, and you don't have their permission.

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