{"id":8561,"date":"2021-10-24T10:00:01","date_gmt":"2021-10-24T10:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/TheNextWeb=1370746"},"modified":"2021-10-24T10:00:01","modified_gmt":"2021-10-24T10:00:01","slug":"nonprofit-websites-are-riddled-with-ad-trackers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=8561","title":{"rendered":"Nonprofit websites are riddled with ad trackers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last year, nearly 200 million people<\/a> visited the website of Planned Parenthood, a nonprofit that many people turn to for very private matters like sex education, access to contraceptives, and access to abortions. What those visitors may not have known is that as soon as they opened plannedparenthood.org, some two dozen ad trackers embedded in the site alerted a slew of companies whose business is not reproductive freedom but gathering, selling, and using browsing data.<\/p>\n

The Markup ran Planned Parenthood\u2019s website through our Blacklight tool<\/a> and found 28 ad trackers and 40 third-party cookies tracking visitors, in addition to so-called \u201csession recorders\u201d that could be capturing the mouse movements and keystrokes of people visiting the homepage in search of things like information on contraceptives and abortions. The site also contained trackers that tell Facebook and Google if users visited the site.<\/p>\n

The Markup\u2019s scan found Planned Parenthood\u2019s site communicating with companies like Oracle, Verizon, LiveRamp, TowerData, and Quantcast\u2014some of which have made a business of assembling and selling access to masses of digital data about people\u2019s habits.<\/p>\n

Katie Skibinski, vice president for digital products at Planned Parenthood, said the data collected on its website is \u201cused only for internal purposes by Planned Parenthood and our affiliates,\u201d and the company doesn\u2019t \u201csell\u201d data to third parties.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we aim to use data to learn how we can be most impactful, at Planned Parenthood, data-driven learning is always thoughtfully executed with respect for patient and user privacy,\u201d Skibinski said. \u201cThis means using analytics platforms to collect aggregate data to gather insights and identify trends that help us improve our digital programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Skibinski did not dispute that the organization shares data with third parties, including data brokers.<\/p>\n

A Blacklight scan of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast\u2014<\/a>a localized website specifically for people in the Gulf region, including Texas, where abortion has been essentially outlawed<\/a>\u2014churned up similar results.<\/p>\n

Planned Parenthood is not alone when it comes to nonprofits, some operating in sensitive areas like mental health and addiction, gathering and sharing data on website visitors.<\/p>\n

Using our Blacklight tool<\/a>, The Markup scanned more than 23,000 websites of nonprofit organizations, including those belonging to abortion providers and nonprofit addiction treatment centers. The Markup used the IRS\u2019s nonprofit master file<\/a> to identify nonprofits that have filed a tax return since 2019 and that the agency categorizes<\/a> as focusing on areas like mental health and crisis intervention, civil rights, and medical research. We then examined each nonprofit\u2019s website as publicly listed in GuideStar<\/a>. We found that about 86 percent of them had third-party cookies or tracking network requests. By comparison, when The Markup did a survey of the top 80,000 websites<\/a> in 2020, we found 87 percent used some type of third-party tracking.<\/p>\n

About 11 percent of the 23,856 nonprofit websites we scanned had a Facebook pixel embedded, while 18 percent used the Google Analytics \u201cRemarketing Audiences\u201d<\/a> feature.<\/p>\n

The Markup found that 439 of the nonprofit websites loaded scripts called session recorders, which can monitor visitors\u2019 clicks and keystrokes. Eighty-nine of those were for websites that belonged to nonprofits that the IRS categorizes as primarily focusing on mental health and crisis intervention issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a user of this website, by sharing your information with them, you probably don\u2019t assume that this sensitive information is shared with third parties and definitely don\u2019t assume that your keystrokes are recorded,\u201d Gunes Acar, a privacy researcher who copublished a 2017 study on session recorders<\/a>, said. \u201cThe more sensitive the website is, the more worried I am.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tracy Plevel, the vice president of development and community relations at Gateway Rehab, one of the nonprofits with session recorders on its site, said that the nonprofit uses trackers and session recorders because it needs to stay competitive with its larger, for-profit counterparts.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a nonprofit ourselves, we are up against for-profit providers with large advertising budgets as well as the addiction treatment brokers who grab those seeking care with similar online advertising tactics and connect them with the provider who is offering the greatest \u2018sales\u2019 compensation,\u201d Plevel said. \u201cAdditionally we know user experience has a big impact on following through on treatment. When someone is ready to commit to treatment, we need to ensure it [is] as easy as possible for them before they get frustrated or intimidated by the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other nonprofits had a significant number of trackers embedded on their sites as well. The Markup found 26 ad trackers and 50 third-party cookies<\/a> on The Clinic at Sharma-Crawford Attorneys at Law, a Kansas City legal clinic that represents low-income people facing deportation.<\/p>\n

Rekha Sharma-Crawford, the board president of The Clinic, wrote in an emailed statement, \u201cWe take privacy and security concerns very seriously and will continue to work with our web provider to address the issues you have identified.\u201d<\/p>\n

Save the Children, a humanitarian aid organization founded more than 100 years ago, had 26 ad trackers and 49 third-party cookies. March of Dimes, a nonprofit started by President Franklin D. Roosevelt that focuses on maternal and infant care, had more than 29 ad trackers on its site and 58 third-party cookies. City of Hope, a Californian cancer treatment and research center, had 25 ad trackers and 47 third-party cookies.<\/p>\n

\"Results
Credit: The Markup<\/a><\/figcaption>
<\/i><\/a>Results of Blacklight scans of the homepages of Save the Children, March of Dimes, and City of Hope, performed on Oct 19 2021<\/figcaption>