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That is really interesting and something I've never heard of. But, do you really think any (>1%) of users will ever care? I understand adblocking (and block all

by soared 10y ago

That is really interesting and something I've never heard of. But, do you really think any (>1%) of users will ever care? I understand adblocking (and block all ads myself), but I fully support a site's decision to track with ga and gtm.

pdkl95 10y ago
> users will ever care? Then make them care. > track with ga and gtm That is a far bigger problem than advertising. I'm fine with sites that track the pages they serve, because that is local only. The problem is when these per-site events are aggregated into a single database. If someone has the event log of every website you visit, not only do they have your entire reading list, they also have a very accurate picture of your pattern-of-life. Google can probably estimate e.g. when you sleep or the length of your commute simply from the timestamps of the GA events they can correlate to your account. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern-of-life_analysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern-of-life_analysis
- soared 10y ago
  Worst case scenario, Google, FB, and the US Gov have access to that kind of data. Google/FB both say they don't record that, or destroy/change it before giving advertisers access to it. I see your point, but realistically I don't think any organization could/would ever do this. Outside of NSA vs. Snowden type cases, but I guess that is where it really counts.
Sylos 10y ago
I do think that we will see a growing number of users caring. The thing is that user tracking is something completely opaque to average users. And as with anything that's opaque, users will generally listen to what smarter people say. Now ask in any privacy-focused community whether you should block Google Analytics and you'll almost certainly be laughed out for even considering that you should not. Add to that that there is already an industry emerging around privacy. Many anti-virus programs already today ship with anti-tracking features. This industry is very much interested in telling their users about user tracking. And they won't give the fluff-explanation of "Yes, you are being tracked, but it's for your own good." like Google and friends are trying to establish.

by soared 10y ago

pdkl95 10y ago

> users will ever care? Then make them care. > track with ga and gtm That is a far bigger problem than advertising. I'm fine with sites that track the pages they serve, because that is local only. The problem is when these per-site events are aggregated into a single database. If someone has the event log of every website you visit, not only do they have your entire reading list, they also have a very accurate picture of your pattern-of-life. Google can probably estimate e.g. when you sleep or the length of your commute simply from the timestamps of the GA events they can correlate to your account. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern-of-life_analysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern-of-life_analysis

soared 10y ago
Worst case scenario, Google, FB, and the US Gov have access to that kind of data. Google/FB both say they don't record that, or destroy/change it before giving advertisers access to it. I see your point, but realistically I don't think any organization could/would ever do this. Outside of NSA vs. Snowden type cases, but I guess that is where it really counts.

Sylos 10y ago

I do think that we will see a growing number of users caring. The thing is that user tracking is something completely opaque to average users. And as with anything that's opaque, users will generally listen to what smarter people say. Now ask in any privacy-focused community whether you should block Google Analytics and you'll almost certainly be laughed out for even considering that you should not. Add to that that there is already an industry emerging around privacy. Many anti-virus programs already today ship with anti-tracking features. This industry is very much interested in telling their users about user tracking. And they won't give the fluff-explanation of "Yes, you are being tracked, but it's for your own good." like Google and friends are trying to establish.