Russians bombed a "strategic bazaar" during the rush hour while people where getting food in Slovyansk, there are killed and wounded. There is a video in the article with some dead bodies, so viewer's discretion advised.
Russian forces struck a market and a residential area in the eastern Ukrainian city of Slovyansk on July 5. Ukrainian officials said at least two people were killed and seven others were injured. (WARNING: Viewers may find the content of this video disturbing.)
www.rferl.org
But this is something really interesting now:
After Russia's aggression against Ukraine, Google joined international sanctions by restricting access to its services. However, not all of them - the Russian advertising company RuTarget, despite the ban, was able to obtain critical data from Ukrainian internet users for four months thanks to Google.
Russia's attack on Ukraine in February caused the largest American companies to leave the country of the aggressors completely or significantly reduce their presence. Also
Google , which
cut off Russians from its advertising and monetization services. Additionally, in early April, the US Treasury Department imposed
sanctions on 42 Russian companies , blacklisting them.
As it turned out, Google unknowingly cooperated with one of these companies for four months, and thanks to this, the Russians gained
access to critical data of Internet users from Ukraine.
Google Ad Exchange and Google Adsense infiltrated by Putin's services
Digital advertising analytics company Adalytics has revealed that Google has allowed
Russian company RuTarget, which has been blacklisted by the US Treasury, to access its Google Ad Exchange and Google Adsense systems.
RuTarget is an internet marketing agency that deals with the sale of on-line advertising, monitoring network traffic, including obtaining and analyzing data on the interests of Internet users using browsers and mobile applications. The range of RuTarget's activities
included, among others, Ukraine. The company also operating as Segmento is
owned by Sberbank , a large state-owned bank in Russia, which is also subject to sanctions.
The Adalytics company identified
nearly 700 cases (and there could have been many more), when RuTarget
collected data of Internet users browsing Ukrainian websites after the Russian attack and after the imposition of sanctions . The data exchange between Google and RuTarget only ended four months after the outbreak of the war, on June 23, when researchers alerted Google to the leak.
What was this data? It turns out to be quite important. RuTarget had access to critical information such as unique
cell phone identifiers, IP addresses, location information, and detailed information about users' interests and online activity.
According to the researchers, this type of data, aggregated with information collected from other sources, can be
used by Russian secret services to track individuals, track them down, arrest and even physically liquidate them. It also facilitates the actions of
Russian hackers and cybercriminals.
Google spokesman Michael Aciman responded to the case, saying that his company cut off RuTarget from its advertising services in March. However, the spokesman's statements show, although he did not explicitly admit it, that the Russian agency was still accessing
Google's data through intermediaries. This continued until researchers at Adalytics raised the alarm.
However, the problem is more complex and does not affect just one RuTarget company. The advertising service exchange systems that Google earns on allow
the uncontrolled flow of data and money . As a result, Google ads continue to appear on websites of sanctioned companies
in Russia, Iran, and Syria.
source based on: ProPublica, Adalytics
