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What to do about third-party web tracking ongovernment websites in Sweden?
Jönköping University, School of Engineering, JTH, Department of Computer Science and Informatics.
2025 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (One Year)), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

While more and more government services are moved online, tracking has also become widespread on the web. Many websites use third party services, which often lets those services track and collect data from visitors. How much third-party web tracking is used on government websites? In the present research, that question was answered in a Swedish context through an automated analysis of 575 Swedish government websites. It was also investigated why third-party web tracking is used on Swedish government websites, and what can be done by these websites in order to decrease the usage of such third parties. This was achieved through interviews with six experts in privacy and security, and later with nine representatives from seven government organizations. The website analysis showed that Google --- this includes Google Analytics, Google Fonts, YouTube, etc. --- was found on just below 30% of websites. Piwik Pro was found on just above, and rek.ai just below, 25%. Some of the reasons for using third-party web tracking on Swedish government websites was the convenience compared to using self-hosted alternatives, that certain accessibility tools are required by law, and that certain tools are provided by the hosting providers or CMS. Some of the recommendations on how to reduce third-party web tracking on government websites was found to be to self-host fonts and analytics, to minimize data collection, and to limit data retention.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2025.
Keywords [en]
web tracking, third-party web tracking, government websites, public sector websites
National Category
Other Engineering and Technologies Information Systems, Social aspects Public Administration Studies Science and Technology Studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-69175OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hj-69175DiVA, id: diva2:1979756
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Available from: 2025-07-02 Created: 2025-07-01 Last updated: 2025-10-13Bibliographically approved

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Other Engineering and TechnologiesInformation Systems, Social aspectsPublic Administration StudiesScience and Technology Studies

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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf