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EU Citizens Being Tracked on Sensitive Government Sites (ft.com)
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.
Few people think the EU is the perfect government, though most politicians want to effect change from within. Personally I think things have gone too far for that to be a viable option, but I don't see how we can tear things doen and rebuild it either. 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. For instance: many companies grumbled at having to get their stuff certified against a bunch of new rules before being allowed to sell it in their own country... until they learned that they only had to certify against those rules in order to sell anywhere in the EU, and that they could do so easily without having to deal with customs and tariffs.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
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.
-- Cheers!
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.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
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, because the EU made it illegal.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The NSA stopped spying on US citizens
https://www.wired.com/2017/04/...
However, https://www.aclu.org/blog/nati...
And https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying
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"