Technical audit · 31.05.2026

daft.ie

Daft.ie (Distilled Media Group) — Ireland's Largest Property Rental and Sales Portal

Daft.ie — Ireland's largest property portal. 103 requests, 20 domains. reCAPTCHA Enterprise at +247 ms, GTM at +543 ms, Facebook at +596 ms — all before both CMPs. Two CMPs run in parallel (Didomi + the site's own cookie-cutter). Google Analytics is declared 'strictly necessary.'

Request timeline

+247 ms · before either CMP
www.google.com/recaptcha/enterprise.js — reCAPTCHA Enterprise. Fires immediately on page load.
+278–1622 ms · before either CMP
www.gstatic.com — reCAPTCHA resources and the Roboto font (loaded via reCAPTCHA). Google's servers, USA.
+542 ms · before either CMP
nca.jrnl.ie/nca-distilled.v69.min.js — Journal Media NCA programmatic advertising.
+543 ms · before either CMP
www.googletagmanager.com (GTM-MHW55M7) — the GTM container. Two parallel calls to GTM.
+596 ms · before either CMP
connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js — the Facebook Events SDK. USA.
+1004 ms · before either CMP
static.hotjar.com (hotjar-1177694) — Hotjar session recording. ID 1177694.
+1008 ms · before either CMP
cdn.wootric.com — the Wootric NPS SDK (account NPS-215a2284). Satisfaction surveys.
+1139 ms · before either CMP
securepubads.g.doubleclick.net/tag/js/gpt.js — Google Publisher Tags. The DoubleClick advertising stack.
+1152 ms · Didomi
sdk.privacy-center.org — the Didomi CMP loader. ID 809d7df8.
+1154 ms · Hubvisor
cdn.hubvisor.io — the Hubvisor header-bidding wrapper. Loads simultaneously with Didomi.
+2039 ms
cookie-cutter.dsch.ie — the second CMP, DSCH's own banner. A further 887 ms after Didomi.

Declared versus actual

✓ Google Analytics — mentioned, but classified as 'strictly necessary' — declared
✓ Google reCAPTCHA — mentioned as strictly necessary — declared
✓ Facebook — mentioned in the cookie table — declared
✓ Hotjar — mentioned in the cookie table (under Donedeal) — declared
✓ Wootric — mentioned in the cookie table (under Donedeal) — declared
✓ Journal Media NCA — mentioned in the cookie table (under Donedeal) — declared
✓ Google Tag Manager — mentioned in the cookie table — declared
✓ DoubleClick / Google Publisher Tags — mentioned in the cookie table — declared
+ Hubvisor (cdn.hubvisor.io) — not explicitly mentioned for daft.ie — not declared

Transfer timings

+247 ms www.google.com

reCAPTCHA Enterprise. USA.

+542 ms nca.jrnl.ie

Journal Media NCA advertising.

+543 ms www.googletagmanager.com

GTM-MHW55M7. x2 calls. USA.

+596 ms connect.facebook.net

Facebook fbevents.js. USA.

+1004 ms static.hotjar.com

Hotjar 1177694. Session recording.

+1008 ms cdn.wootric.com

Wootric NPS-215a2284. USA.

+1139 ms securepubads.g.doubleclick.net

Google GPT DoubleClick. USA.

+1152 ms sdk.privacy-center.org

Didomi loader. UUID 809d7df8.

+1154 ms cdn.hubvisor.io

Hubvisor header bidding. USA.

+2039 ms cookie-cutter.dsch.ie

DSCH cookie-cutter. 887 ms after Didomi.

Detected trackers

Indicators of GDPR non-compliance

Context

Daft.ie is Ireland’s largest property portal, owned by Distilled Media Group (DSCH). It operates alongside the sister sites Donedeal.ie and Adverts.ie. It processes data belonging to prospective tenants and property buyers — often people in a financially or housing-precarious position. HAR: 103 requests, 20 domains. 52 requests go to dist-property-frontend-daft.daft.ie (a Next.js CDN), 8 to media.daft.ie (images), and 7 to www.daft.ie.

Two CMPs with an 887 ms gap

Daft runs two consent management tools in parallel. Didomi (sdk.privacy-center.org) loads at +1152 ms. cookie-cutter.dsch.ie — the DSCH group’s own CMP platform — loads at +2039 ms. The gap between them is 887 ms. By the time the first CMP appears, the following are already active: reCAPTCHA (+247 ms), NCA (+542 ms), GTM (+543 ms), Facebook (+596 ms), Hotjar (+1004 ms), Wootric (+1008 ms), and DoubleClick (+1139 ms). By the time the second CMP appears, all of the above are active plus Hubvisor (+1154 ms). Neither CMP functions as a blocker: both appear after the tracking stack.

Google Analytics as “strictly necessary”

Daft.ie’s Cookie Policy contains the following statement: “For the privacy of our users, we only use Google Analytics to process obscured and/or non-personally identifiable data… With these privacy safeguards, Google Analytics and the cookies it requires to function are classified as strictly necessary.” Classifying Google Analytics as a strictly necessary cookie contradicts the EDPB’s position (Guidelines 05/2020 on consent, §25): analytics cookies cannot be exempted from the consent requirement on the grounds that they are used with aggregated data. Strictly necessary cookies are exclusively those without which the service requested by the user cannot technically be provided. Removing Google Analytics does not render daft.ie non-functional.

Journal Media NCA and Hubvisor

nca.jrnl.ie is the advertising platform of Irish Journal Media (Noteworthy Contextual Advertising). It loads at +542 ms, 610 ms before the first CMP. cdn.hubvisor.io is a header-bidding wrapper that manages real-time bidding across multiple advertising exchanges. Hubvisor is not explicitly mentioned in the cookie policy.

None of the 103 requests sets a cookie via Set-Cookie. The entire tracking stack operates via localStorage and URL parameters.

Conclusion

daft.ie reproduces the pattern seen at myhome.ie with additional elements: two CMPs instead of one, both loading after the trackers; Google Analytics declared strictly necessary contrary to the EDPB’s position. Users searching for housing — often under housing-related stress — are identified by nine external services before any consent choice is made. The architecture requires a fundamental change: a single CMP, loaded as the very first script on the page, blocking all subsequent tags via GTM until consent is given.

Evidence

How to verify: download the file and compute its checksum — sha256sum file.har (Linux, macOS) or certutil -hashfile file.har SHA256 (Windows); it must match the one shown. The conclusions apply to the scope of this measurement — see the limitations of the method.

Original (audit)
HAR file: ie/daft-ie-2026-05-31.har
SHA-256: 0204a2756a5d404ad954566d7ae9dfedbc3881980aac0b9a0412fff190831385
Re-check snapshot
Awaiting changes
HAR files are stored on EU infrastructure (Proton Drive). SHA-256 is published for integrity verification.