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As the parent comment has explained, all USPS is doing -- at least from their perspective -- is to use some third-party analytics tools, without intentionally o

by rty32 2y ago

As the parent comment has explained, all USPS is doing -- at least from their perspective -- is to use some third-party analytics tools, without intentionally or specifically linking to Facebook or Snapchat. Or put it this way -- is there a data analytics platform that is suitable & easy to use for any US government agency? Not that I am aware of (but please let me know). Without such infrastructure, these government organizations understandably are looking for those commercial options.

uoaei 2y ago
Security and similar audits are a big deal in government. Or, at least, they were...
segasaturn 2y ago
While I find it questionable that a government agency should be collecting analytics on its visitors in the first place, there are self-hosted analytics tools that they can use. One Google search turns up plausible.io which, even if its less convenient than Google would help with trust. It seems we've completely normalized the State conducting mass surveillance, tracking and metadata collection on citizens with the aid of corporate tech giants like Google.
- adenylyl 2y ago
  The US government does run its own self-hosted analytics platform (https://analytics.usa.gov https://analytics.usa.gov), which the USPS does in fact use. Which makes it all the more questionable that they were additionally using third-party analytics.
  - mh- 2y ago
    Offtopic, I chuckled that the top* city visitors come from is Ashburn. That's definitely just a GeoIP database picking up AWS traffic. * (in the last 30 minutes, as of now)
  - nighthawk454 2y ago
    > The data come from a unified Google Analytics account for U.S. federal government agencies known as the Digital Analytics Program. Well…
- vel0city 2y ago
  I don't think basic analytics is objectionable for a government org web service. I'd hope they'd be tracking "Do people use this? What kind of devices do people consume this site on? Is the page even loading properly for most people?" This is analytics data. Or maybe you'd call that "mass surveillance".
  - j5155 2y ago
    Sure, basic analytics is not objectionable. The issue comes from the analytics not being limited to basic things, as this post shows.
    - vel0city 2y ago
      > I find it questionable that a government agency should be collecting analytics on its visitors in the first place I don't agree with them using known abusers of personal data for the tooling, but this is what I was talking about. I don't like them using Facebook for analytics, I don't know what they were getting from it. But the basic premise of analytics, I think they should do.
      - advael 2y ago
        Sure, but the answer they gave to this reporter was the same usual corporate garbage response that included "we need analytics to market our products" (???) I think it's fucked up that any agency is "marketing products" at all, but inasmuch as this is necessary in some way, surely they don't need the kind of surveillance marketing that's questionably even worth it for corporate advertisers to use. It literally reads like a google or facebook lawyer wrote it
        bobthepanda 2y ago
        i mean the entire last few decades or so people have been banging the drum that parts of government, like the USPS, should "operate like a business" or even be privatized. so this being an end result of that is not that shocking, unfortunately.
Symbiote 2y ago
And now you see why the GDPR requires a site to list the third parties involved. https://www.royalmail.com/privacy-notice https://www.royalmail.com/privacy-notice and the cookie policy, 3.4.
- Aloisius 2y ago
  I must be missing something. Their list of who they are data with is vague such as "other organisations if this is necessary as part of providing services to you or them." I suppose it is nice that they tell you that they may send your name, contact information and purchase information to market research companies?
nerdponx 2y ago
Is Matomo not suitable?
- chatmasta 2y ago
  I believe at least one French government website uses Matomo, based on the fact that I once used their React snippet to make it work. Matomo is pretty solid. And you can always use it just to ingest the data, then analyze it with something other than the default dashboards.
deleted 2y ago
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SilasX 2y ago
Still, I'd expect the government's bean counters to ensure that any usage of third party analytics involves some ironclad agreement to the effect of, "If you fail to meet <Herculean privacy desiderata>, then we f---ing own you", so at least the government gets something when said third party inevitably violates the agreement.
- harles 2y ago
  Except it was the government agency that violated their agreements by providing this data. At least Facebook, based on their response, specifically put in the agreement that this sort of data should never be provided. It seems like the proposal of consequences flows the wrong way here.
pengaru 2y ago
Imagine believing this wasn't the product of corruption and nobody got kickbacks for letting this "mistake" happen.

by rty32 2y ago

uoaei 2y ago

Security and similar audits are a big deal in government. Or, at least, they were...

segasaturn 2y ago

While I find it questionable that a government agency should be collecting analytics on its visitors in the first place, there are self-hosted analytics tools that they can use. One Google search turns up plausible.io which, even if its less convenient than Google would help with trust. It seems we've completely normalized the State conducting mass surveillance, tracking and metadata collection on citizens with the aid of corporate tech giants like Google.

adenylyl 2y ago
The US government does run its own self-hosted analytics platform (https://analytics.usa.gov https://analytics.usa.gov), which the USPS does in fact use. Which makes it all the more questionable that they were additionally using third-party analytics.
- mh- 2y ago
  Offtopic, I chuckled that the top* city visitors come from is Ashburn. That's definitely just a GeoIP database picking up AWS traffic. * (in the last 30 minutes, as of now)
- nighthawk454 2y ago
  > The data come from a unified Google Analytics account for U.S. federal government agencies known as the Digital Analytics Program. Well…
vel0city 2y ago
I don't think basic analytics is objectionable for a government org web service. I'd hope they'd be tracking "Do people use this? What kind of devices do people consume this site on? Is the page even loading properly for most people?" This is analytics data. Or maybe you'd call that "mass surveillance".
- j5155 2y ago
  Sure, basic analytics is not objectionable. The issue comes from the analytics not being limited to basic things, as this post shows.
  - vel0city 2y ago
    > I find it questionable that a government agency should be collecting analytics on its visitors in the first place I don't agree with them using known abusers of personal data for the tooling, but this is what I was talking about. I don't like them using Facebook for analytics, I don't know what they were getting from it. But the basic premise of analytics, I think they should do.
    - advael 2y ago
      Sure, but the answer they gave to this reporter was the same usual corporate garbage response that included "we need analytics to market our products" (???) I think it's fucked up that any agency is "marketing products" at all, but inasmuch as this is necessary in some way, surely they don't need the kind of surveillance marketing that's questionably even worth it for corporate advertisers to use. It literally reads like a google or facebook lawyer wrote it
      - bobthepanda 2y ago
        i mean the entire last few decades or so people have been banging the drum that parts of government, like the USPS, should "operate like a business" or even be privatized. so this being an end result of that is not that shocking, unfortunately.

Symbiote 2y ago

And now you see why the GDPR requires a site to list the third parties involved. https://www.royalmail.com/privacy-notice https://www.royalmail.com/privacy-notice and the cookie policy, 3.4.

Aloisius 2y ago
I must be missing something. Their list of who they are data with is vague such as "other organisations if this is necessary as part of providing services to you or them." I suppose it is nice that they tell you that they may send your name, contact information and purchase information to market research companies?

nerdponx 2y ago

Is Matomo not suitable?

chatmasta 2y ago
I believe at least one French government website uses Matomo, based on the fact that I once used their React snippet to make it work. Matomo is pretty solid. And you can always use it just to ingest the data, then analyze it with something other than the default dashboards.

deleted 2y ago

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deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

SilasX 2y ago

Still, I'd expect the government's bean counters to ensure that any usage of third party analytics involves some ironclad agreement to the effect of, "If you fail to meet <Herculean privacy desiderata>, then we f---ing own you", so at least the government gets something when said third party inevitably violates the agreement.

harles 2y ago
Except it was the government agency that violated their agreements by providing this data. At least Facebook, based on their response, specifically put in the agreement that this sort of data should never be provided. It seems like the proposal of consequences flows the wrong way here.

pengaru 2y ago

Imagine believing this wasn't the product of corruption and nobody got kickbacks for letting this "mistake" happen.