The Courts Service website, leaving tracking cookies

mathepac

I can't remember visiting the Courts Service website but according to a security scanner that I ran on all the cookies stored on my computer, the Irish Courts Service has, without my explicit permission, been tracking me online (websites visited, browsing activity, etc.) and reporting on it.

What's the legal position on this sort of stuff? I thought we had some protections against gross intrusions of privacy and spying; do these not stretch to internet use?

The cookie (2 of them) values are :

"103720082.326251924.1334272886.1334372708.1334438701.4" and expiry date of 14/04/2014

"103720082.1334272886.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none)" expiry 14/10/2012

According to my cookie analyser (Cookie Stumbler) "This cookie contains tracking information which helps advertisers to profile you. Are you sure you wish to retain this cookie?" when I access it. Why would the Irish Courts Service need to place such an intrusive item on my computer? This is the online software version of a physical electronic tag.

MagicSean

Two questions immediately spring to mind. How do you know it's the courts service? And what scanner did you use?

I can't see the courts service collecting this info.

mathepac

mathepac wrote: »

...
According to my cookie analyser (Cookie Stumbler) "This cookie contains tracking information which helps advertisers to profile you. Are you sure you wish to retain this cookie?" when I access it. Why would the Irish Courts Service need to place such an intrusive item on my computer? This is the online software version of a physical electronic tag.

Scanner / Analyser combined in the same tool. There is a hyperlink in the cookies directly to the site linked to above and the cookies are named as courts.ie.

Other cookies analysed (apple, google, amazon, boards.ie, etc) and other named cookies, also link to their respective sites, so I have no reason to disbelieve the information I'm given by Cookie Stumbler.

Do you have another scanner / analyser I can try (Mac v10.6.8)?

MagicSean

mathepac wrote: »

Scanner / Analyser combined in the same tool. There is a hyperlink in the cookies directly to the site linked to above and the cookies are named as courts.ie.

Other cookies analysed (apple, google, amazon, boards.ie, etc) and other named cookies, also link to their respective sites, so I have no reason to disbelieve the information I'm given by Cookie Stumbler.

Do you have another scanner / analyser I can try (Mac v10.6.8)?

What i mean is, how do you know that someone hasn't just linked it to the courts website to disguise it?

johnnyskeleton

Perhaps more suitable to the computers forum?

mathepac

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

Perhaps more suitable to the computers forum?

No. Thread has been taken off topic by the tech questions and my need to respond.

Can I get a legal position on my question regarding the Courts Service apparently spying on our browsing activities please? (I assume I am not alone in having these cookies set)

mathepac wrote: »

... What's the legal position on this sort of stuff? I thought we had some protections against gross intrusions of privacy and spying; do these not stretch to internet use? ...

coylemj

They are not 'spying' on you. Every cookie tracker will throw up a warning such as the one you quoted..

"This cookie contains tracking information which helps advertisers to profile you"

In the case of the courts.ie cookies, I just visited the website, clicked on several pages and it stored four pretty harmless looking cookies in Firefox, four lines consisting of '_UTMx' where 'x' was the only variable.

If you don't like a website storing cookies, you can set your browser to disallow them and you can also run a housekeeping utility such as CCleaner to flush them out every so often.

There is no legal issue here because nobody is 'spying' on you. Virtually every website tries to store cookies in your browser. The vast majority of them are harmless, their purpose typically is to store settings appropriate to your environment which speeds up the formatting of webpages for your browser on your next visit.

For example, if you visit CNN.com they will ask if you want to view the US or international version of the website. Whichever option you select will be stored as a cookie and you won't be asked the same question next time you visit. In 99% of cases that is what cookies are used for - your benefit, not theirs.

johnnyskeleton

The people in the computers forum will know what sort of thing you're dealing with and they will probably know if it is a legally prohibited type of computer hacking eg spyware or whether it comes within the terms of use of the software.

Two things though:

1. There must surely be a way to stop it if you dont like it and that is what you shoul find out.

2. As already said it sounds a bit strange that if the government were spying on you they would use the courts website to do so. As bad as our government is, give them some credit

Tom Young

Turn off your accept cookies settings.

Legally this is covered by the amended Communications Regulatory Framework and ancillary directives, including privacy.

See here: www.dcenr.gov.ie

coylemj

OP, I can see that s/w for sale in the US for $14 so perhaps it's not surprising that they are making you paranoid about cookies, even from a website like courts.ie with no commercial gain to be made from storing cookies on your machine. I'd be looking for my money back.

Antivirus companies get up to the same game, it's in their interests to hype up the threat from viruses to way more than is justified. They have a commercial interest in stoking fear and paranoia, the same applies to the company which sold you that s/w.

Every web browser has an option to either block or allow all cookies or block all with named exceptions, that's what you should be looking at instead of reading spurious reports designed to keep you awake at night from non-existent threats. If you want to selectively clean out existing cookies, install CCLeaner, it's free.

How did you make the leap from this .....

mathepac wrote: »

According to my cookie analyser (Cookie Stumbler) "This cookie contains tracking information which helps advertisers to profile you. Are you sure you wish to retain this cookie?"

to this .....

mathepac wrote: »

.... the Irish Courts Service has, without my explicit permission, been tracking me online (websites visited, browsing activity, etc.) and reporting on it.

Where is the evidence that courts.ie has been (1) tracking the websites you've visited and (2) reporting your activity to anyone?

mathepac

Tom Young wrote: »

....
Legally this is covered by the amended Communications Regulatory Framework and ancillary directives, including privacy.

See here: www.dcenr.gov.ie

Thanks, that's what I was looking for.

Tom Young

You should note that Cookies appear and are on notice to you in the Courts.ie 'Privacy Statement' of the website.

Victor

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

2. As already said it sounds a bit strange that if the government were spying on you they would use the courts website to do so. As bad as our government is, give them some credit

The Department of Justice do it as well.

coylemj

Tom Young wrote: »

You should note that Cookies appear and are on notice to you in the Courts.ie 'Privacy Statement' of the website.

Which specifically states as follows....

Our website does not use cookies. Visitors can use our site with no loss of functionality if cookies are disabled from the web browser.

so his claim that the cookies 'have been tracking me online (websites visited, browsing activity, etc.) and reporting on it.' is nonsense.

http://tinyurl.com/d3ozy7o

Tom Young

Yeah, I didn't actually read that text!

Victor

Courts service wrote:

Our website does not use cookies.

Then why not use ordinary links like everyone else?

mathepac

The statement by the Courts service that " Our website does not use cookies " is patently a lie. Two posters in this thread have today detected the Courts Service leaving cookies on their computers. Why would they lie about it and why would they choose to post tracking cookies when they could use a different kind of cookie that does not do tracking?

We now have the Courts Service lying to us and apparently that seems to be an absolute hoot. Why is it necessary for an important arm of the Dept. of Justice to do this?

When I made the OP, I had already checked that the preferences in various browsers and mail programs I use dis-allowed risks and informed me if any site tried to use pop-ups, cookies, etc and I had ticked the boxes to clear browser histories & caches on exit, etc, hence my legal question in a legal thread. It now seems that certain sites may be bypassing user preferences and security measures in browsers and leaving cookies etc. irrespective.

My reason for testing a variety of security measures is because I want to find what is best for me whether it's paid-for or free like CCleaner.

coylemj

mathepac wrote: »

why would they choose to post tracking cookies when they could use a different kind of cookie that does not do tracking?

Who says they are 'tracking' cookies? You are being paranoid about this with no good reason. You paid for a piece of s/w from a company which has a vested interest in stoking up suspicion and paranoia, clearly in your case they have succeeded.

If you believe the state is spying on you, maybe you belong over in the Conspiracy Theories forum.

BornToKill

mathepac wrote: »

I can't remember visiting the Courts Service website but according to a security scanner that I ran on all the cookies stored on my computer, the Irish Courts Service has, without my explicit permission, been tracking me online (websites visited, browsing activity, etc.) and reporting on it.

mathepac wrote: »

The statement by the Courts service that " Our website does not use cookies " is patently a lie. Two posters in this thread have today detected the Courts Service leaving cookies on their computers...It now seems that certain sites may be bypassing user preferences and security measures in browsers and leaving cookies etc. irrespective.

They must be really good if they can bypass user preferences and security systems and leave cookies on the computers of people who haven't even been on their site. Or could there be another explanation?

Procrastastudy

Careful there's a trojan going around that activates your webcam without you knowing too! :eek:

WriteItStudios

Hello!

I'm the developer of Cookie Stumbler and I'd like to address some of the comments made here. First of all, mathepac, the two cookies Cookie Stumbler has found are Google Analytics cookies, a tracking service by Google. These cookies should be deleted. For those claiming on this post that cookies are nothing to worry about, see this, which shows to what lengths advertisers go nowadays to continue tracking you. Google is one of the worst culprits out there and has recently changed their privacy policy (March 1st) that allows them to share your data via all their services. If you are happy with being tracked all over the internet and this doesn't concern you, great, but other people are concerned and I really don't appreciate my company being branded by people as "living on causing suspicion and paranoia" etc. It's not our aim to stoke up suspicion and paranoia and you should really do some serious research before claiming things like this. I can't see why the court would use Google Analytics to gain visitor info on its users as there're solutions that do not track but still provide this information, but mathepac was right to be alerted. It shouldn't be any company's/organization's business as to what you do on the internet.

{SNIP} MOD: If you'd like to discuss advertising on this site, please contact hello@boards.ie

There's also a great video on this topic here by Wall Street Journal. Oh but wait, they're probably just part of the "conspiracy forum".

coylemj wrote: »

Who says they are 'tracking' cookies? You are being paranoid about this with no good reason. You paid for a piece of s/w from a company which has a vested interest in stoking up suspicion and paranoia, clearly in your case they have succeeded.

If you believe the state is spying on you, maybe you belong over in the Conspiracy Theories forum.

coylemj

WriteItStudios wrote: »

... and I really don't appreciate my company being branded by people as "living on causing suspicion and paranoia" etc. It's not our aim to stoke up suspicion and paranoia ..

Whatever about antivirus companies, a company peddling a cookie removal tool has to rely on suspicion and paranoia without which you wouldn't be in business. I can manage perfectly well with my browser settings and CCLeaner, thank you.

WriteItStudios wrote: »

... and you should really do some serious research before claiming things like this.

Perhaps you mean I should have read of other users' experiences, maybe people like this guy....

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/switcher-hangout/261872-cookie-stumbler.html

WriteItStudios

coylemj wrote: »

Whatever about antivirus companies, a company peddling a cookie removal tool has to rely on suspicion and paranoia without which you wouldn't be in business. I can manage perfectly well with my browser settings and CCLeaner, thank you.

Good for you.

coylemj wrote: »

Perhaps you mean I should have read of other users' experiences, maybe people like this guy....

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/switcher-hangout/261872-cookie-stumbler.html

There is no such thing as bug-free software. Of course there were programing errors, but we've fixed them. It happens to every developer once in a while. Cookies scanned by our app are inconsistent, some web developers adhere to web standards, others do not. It is impossible for us to be prepared for every type of malformed url or malformed cookie value in a week. This process takes time.

coylemj

WriteItStudios wrote: »

There is no such thing as bug-free software. Of course there were programing errors, but we've fixed them. It happens to every developer once in a while. Cookies scanned by our app are inconsistent, some web developers adhere to web standards, others do not. It is impossible for us to be prepared for every type of malformed url or malformed cookie value in a week. This process takes time.

Did you bother to actually read the discussion? There is no mention of s/w bugs, instead what the user was advised to do was to uninstall your s/w and set his browser settings appropriately.

He got replies from two of the staff running Mac Forums and a user with over 9,000 posts......

=== chscag (Mac-Forums Staff) ======

An app that deletes cookies isn't necessary since both Safari and Chrome offer a way to do it through their respective preferences. Some cookies are necessary as they store login information and certain other information that may be necessary in order to access the site. For example: On line banking.

=== Vansmith (Mac-Forums Staff) ======

In most cases, cookies will store any piece of data that needs to be saved between visits. Think of how often a site remembers something. Multiply that since many domains that you don't directly visit will create cookies to store settings (such as ads). When you start to consider how often something stores a piece of information, 1000 doesn't seem so unreasonable (especially if you never delete them). For instance, I have a cookie stored from Adobe which holds the locale such that anytime I visit their website, I'm directed to the appropriate page for my locale. As you can see, it can be something very simple.

Let me use myself as an example. I live in two browsers: Opera and Chrome. Chrome has stored 1853 cookies from 708 different domains. I don't have a count for Opera but the number will be huge (the list is quite long).

=== chas_m (Mac-Forums senior member with >9,000 posts) ======

Cookies are *broadly speaking* harmless and don't interfere with the normal operation of the browser, you got scammed IMO.

Uninstall the cookie stumbler, set your browser's cookie settings the way you want, and live a happy life.

=======================================

MagicSean

WriteItStudios wrote: »

Hello!

I'm the developer of Cookie Stumbler and I'd like to address some of the comments made here. First of all, mathepac, the two cookies Cookie Stumbler has found are Google Analytics cookies, a tracking service by Google. These cookies should be deleted. For those claiming on this post that cookies are nothing to worry about, see this, which shows to what lengths advertisers go nowadays to continue tracking you. Google is one of the worst culprits out there and has recently changed their privacy policy (March 1st) that allows them to share your data via all their services. If you are happy with being tracked all over the internet and this doesn't concern you, great, but other people are concerned and I really don't appreciate my company being branded by people as "living on causing suspicion and paranoia" etc. It's not our aim to stoke up suspicion and paranoia and you should really do some serious research before claiming things like this. I can't see why the court would use Google Analytics to gain visitor info on its users as there're solutions that do not track but still provide this information, but mathepac was right to be alerted. It shouldn't be any company's/organization's business as to what you do on the internet.

{SNIP} MOD: If you'd like to discuss advertising on this site, please contact hello@boards.ie

There's also a great video on this topic here by Wall Street Journal. Oh but wait, they're probably just part of the "conspiracy forum".

Just so i am clear here, are you supporting your softwares claim that the courts service website, which the op claims to have never visited, is putting tracking cookies on his computer? It seems a little odd that you could get a cookie from a site you never visited. Or is it possible that the cookie was made to look like it was from the courts service to help conceal it? Bare in mind that the op appears to be relying on your software in consideration for possible legal action.