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The author claims that for one-time visitors you're not supposed to have any 3rd-party tracking code but uses Google Analytics which Ghostery counts as a tracki

The author claims that for one-time visitors you're not supposed to have any 3rd-party tracking code but uses Google Analytics which Ghostery counts as a tracking code. How's that going to work out for practically every site in the world?

akvadrako 9y ago
Hopefully this castrates Google Analytics so much it's useless and goes away.
- mi100hael 9y ago
  Why? Having insight into website traffic is hugely valuable to webmasters.
  - dbg31415 9y ago
    They shouldn't have to feed information to Google -- they just need to look at the logs on their servers. Y'know... the way we did it before Google Analytics came along.
    - vilmosi 9y ago
      There's an entire industry around parsing logs though. Even "big data" companies outsource their log parsing. Requiring every website to create graphs and stats from log files is not practical, especially with websites that don't have a constant developer on it. Think blogs, recipe websites, restaurants. Google Analytics provides an insanely good value for them and it's a good thing. It's not like pre Google Analytics we had a golden age of website stats.
      - TeMPOraL 9y ago
        Why do you need those stats anyway? It's not like your webmaster is load-balancing your cluster using Google Analytics feed. Let webmasters use tools for webmasters, and get rid of the marketing crap.
        mi100hael 9y ago
        The numbers are hugely valuable for small businesses in particular. It enables A-B testing of pages/posts, insight into which external platforms are providing the most traction, etc. Essentially, it enables you as a small business to determine where you should be focusing what's probably a very limited budget in order to connect with audiences who are actually interested in your product/service. There's no exploitation or sale of data or misuse of private info involved.
    - return1 9y ago
      sounds like advocating going back to the middle ages because "people were simpler"
  - inetknght 9y ago
    The website should still work without analytics.
    - mgiannopoulos 9y ago
      The company would not (one can argue). Business analytics are critical.
  - merinowool 9y ago
    Why is it? Do you mean marketing people rather than webmasters? Won't webmasters have logs?
    - tempestn 9y ago
      In order to gain insight into how users interact with your website. This allows improvements to user experience. GA is definitely not only useful for marketing.
      - merinowool 9y ago
        You can do user sessions/workshops, which would be more valuable.
        tempestn 9y ago
        Yes, but they don't replace the value of the aggregate data.
fasteddie 9y ago
Its going to work out that if they are under the coverage area for GDPR (have EU customers / EU nexus) -- they have to have visitors opt in to be tracked by GA, unless they can guarantee it cant be used to tie the user to any other PII.
- merinowool 9y ago
  How do you know a user consented to that when one computer could be used by many people?
ec109685 9y ago
The author is wrong. You just do what google does and ask for consent before providing access to the site. The user doesn’t need to log in to consent. Once consented, the site can set a cookie. Then that user becomes part of your “Full interaction users” bucket.
- r00fus 9y ago
  What if they don't consent? Will you have not do analytics for that user? You can't block that user as per GDPR if they are simply answering no to the consent.
  - ec109685 9y ago
    Yes you can block. See the YouTube example. As long as you have a valid reason to collect the data for the benefit of the user experience, you can make that a requirement to use the site.
  - mgiannopoulos 9y ago
    You can argue that GA is critical to the existence of the site, so you are allowed to block non-consenting users. I hope anyway :)
- mgiannopoulos 9y ago
  Sounds good to me but that would be only needed if you’re sending personal data (like usernames) to Google Analytics, right? If you’re anonymising IP and have no personal data in your URLs, there is no need for consent for GA tracking I think.
  - ec109685 9y ago
    It doesn’t have to be personally identifying info to qualify. If you are storing data on behalf of the user, you have to get consent from the user.
    - mgiannopoulos 9y ago

akvadrako 9y ago

Hopefully this castrates Google Analytics so much it's useless and goes away.

mi100hael 9y ago
Why? Having insight into website traffic is hugely valuable to webmasters.
- dbg31415 9y ago
  They shouldn't have to feed information to Google -- they just need to look at the logs on their servers. Y'know... the way we did it before Google Analytics came along.
  - vilmosi 9y ago
    There's an entire industry around parsing logs though. Even "big data" companies outsource their log parsing. Requiring every website to create graphs and stats from log files is not practical, especially with websites that don't have a constant developer on it. Think blogs, recipe websites, restaurants. Google Analytics provides an insanely good value for them and it's a good thing. It's not like pre Google Analytics we had a golden age of website stats.
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      Why do you need those stats anyway? It's not like your webmaster is load-balancing your cluster using Google Analytics feed. Let webmasters use tools for webmasters, and get rid of the marketing crap.
      - mi100hael 9y ago
        The numbers are hugely valuable for small businesses in particular. It enables A-B testing of pages/posts, insight into which external platforms are providing the most traction, etc. Essentially, it enables you as a small business to determine where you should be focusing what's probably a very limited budget in order to connect with audiences who are actually interested in your product/service. There's no exploitation or sale of data or misuse of private info involved.
  - return1 9y ago
    sounds like advocating going back to the middle ages because "people were simpler"
- inetknght 9y ago
  The website should still work without analytics.
  - mgiannopoulos 9y ago
    The company would not (one can argue). Business analytics are critical.
- merinowool 9y ago
  Why is it? Do you mean marketing people rather than webmasters? Won't webmasters have logs?
  - tempestn 9y ago
    In order to gain insight into how users interact with your website. This allows improvements to user experience. GA is definitely not only useful for marketing.
    - merinowool 9y ago
      You can do user sessions/workshops, which would be more valuable.
      - tempestn 9y ago
        Yes, but they don't replace the value of the aggregate data.

fasteddie 9y ago

Its going to work out that if they are under the coverage area for GDPR (have EU customers / EU nexus) -- they have to have visitors opt in to be tracked by GA, unless they can guarantee it cant be used to tie the user to any other PII.

merinowool 9y ago
How do you know a user consented to that when one computer could be used by many people?

ec109685 9y ago

The author is wrong. You just do what google does and ask for consent before providing access to the site. The user doesn’t need to log in to consent. Once consented, the site can set a cookie. Then that user becomes part of your “Full interaction users” bucket.

r00fus 9y ago
What if they don't consent? Will you have not do analytics for that user? You can't block that user as per GDPR if they are simply answering no to the consent.
- ec109685 9y ago
  Yes you can block. See the YouTube example. As long as you have a valid reason to collect the data for the benefit of the user experience, you can make that a requirement to use the site.
- mgiannopoulos 9y ago
  You can argue that GA is critical to the existence of the site, so you are allowed to block non-consenting users. I hope anyway :)
mgiannopoulos 9y ago
Sounds good to me but that would be only needed if you’re sending personal data (like usernames) to Google Analytics, right? If you’re anonymising IP and have no personal data in your URLs, there is no need for consent for GA tracking I think.
- ec109685 9y ago
  It doesn’t have to be personally identifying info to qualify. If you are storing data on behalf of the user, you have to get consent from the user.
  - mgiannopoulos 9y ago