Should Goverment sites use 3rd Party Tracking Services

winhelp2002 — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 03:57:00 GMT

Recently I received an email from one of my HOSTS file users that was concerned about sending his information filled out on a ".gov" site that routes thru BraveNet - a 3rd party Tracking Service.

The site in question is "West Nile Virus Report a dead bird in King County"
http://www.metrokc.gov/health/westnile/deadbird.htm

As you can see when you fill out the requested information for this report -
Name, Phone Number, and Email address, the disturbing part is when you press Send, as you can see it is sent thru
hxxp://pub2.bravenet.com/emailfwd/senddata.php

Nowhere on their site do they disclose that your information is being routed thru a 3rd party
[Terms of Service] [Privacy Policy] nor do they take into account that if "*.bravenet.com" is an entry in the Internet Explorer "Restricted Zone" that the report will fail ...

Metrokc.gov also fails to disclose that in sending this report that BraveNet also sets a 3rd party "Tracking Cookie"

Set-Cookie: HASCOOKIES=1; expires=Tue, 01 Aug 2017 03:46:42 GMT; path=/; domain=.bravenet.com

This type of activity has come into question before "WhiteHouse.gov Uses Cookies, Bugs" and basically erodes the public trust in Government sites ... I find this another "What were they thinking?"

Hosts News : BraveNet

Should Goverment sites use 3rd Party Tracking Services