3 ms·
"Dutch suicide prevention hotline shares visitor data with tech companies" is certainly one way of saying "Dutch suicide prevention hotline website uses Google
by simonw 6mo ago
"Dutch suicide prevention hotline shares visitor data with tech companies" is certainly one way of saying "Dutch suicide prevention hotline website uses Google Analytics".
- _def 6mo agoI get what you mean, but it's still perfectly accurate.
- simonw 6mo agoSure it's accurate but it misleads people who only read the headlines. There are a bunch of comments in this Hacker News thread where the comment author seems to be assuming something a lot deeper than Google Analytics here.
- fsflover 6mo agoNothing deeper is required. This is already outrageous. You can hardly make it worse.
- caymanjim 6mo agoYou say that like there's a difference. You say that like the detail of data that Google Analytics farms is acceptable. You say that like what Google does with the data is acceptable. Just because companies want the data doesn't mean they deserve it.
- repelsteeltje 6mo agoTotally agree that Google should not be on a service like this in any shape or form. But "sharing data" does somewhat suggest they are sharing the payload, the actual conversations.
- simonw 6mo agoWhat does Google do with analytics data that's not acceptable to you? https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1011397 https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1011397 says "Regardless of your data sharing settings, your Analytics data may also be used only insofar as necessary to Maintain and protect the Analytics service."
- philipwhiuk 6mo ago> Maintain and protect the Analytics service This is a pretty broad leash. "To maintain the analytics service we need to make money"
- simonw 6mo agoWhat's the absolute worst thing Google could be doing with that analytics data?
- fsflover 6mo agoSell it to insurance companies, employers? Use it to target ads of snake oil to vulnerable people?
- simonw 6mo agoSell what to insurance companies? All they have is that there was a hit from an IP at a specific date and time. Any cookies they set will let them tell that the same browser came back an hour later - but won't let them join traffic together across multiple sites.
- fsflover 6mo agoIP can be correlated with other data to infer the identity. Google ads are everywhere, so Google probably knows, who you are and your IP.
- caymanjim 6mo ago
- Spoom 6mo agoI thought the same thing but it's still not a good look. The big tech companies offering this sort of thing should probably find ways to give better guarantees about data isolation, even if that requires e.g. clients paying additional fees.
- vanschelven 6mo agoGoogle Analytics as well as Microsoft, which indeed makes "tech companies". What are you implying here really?
- simonw 6mo agoThe headline as written implies active sharing, at first glance it sounds like an active conspiracy between the website and Google. Dropping Google Analytics on a page is not an active conspiracy.
- vanschelven 6mo agoDropping Google Analytics on a page is indeed precisely active sharing of data with Google; it just happens to use your own browser against you rather than sending the data to Google from the server of the website. There's no "active conspiracy" needed as long as this kind of behavior keeps being normalized by comments like the above.
- JohnFen 6mo ago> Dropping Google Analytics on a page is not an active conspiracy. It absolutely is that website deciding to trade data about their visitors in exchange for getting something for free. That's "active sharing" in my book.