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I find it ridiculous that an adblocker blocks access to even first party analytics. /piwik.php is found on EasyPrivacy list, which is one of the default uBlock

by r3bl 8y ago

I find it ridiculous that an adblocker blocks access to even first party analytics. /piwik.php is found on EasyPrivacy list, which is one of the default uBlock Origin filter lists. I really didn't expect my adblocker to do that when I installed it.

joosters 8y ago
I find it ridiculous that first party analytics requires extra requests at all - there's enough log information from my actual page requests, you don't need to make extra ones. If your logging is so inefficient, it should be blocked.
- Thiez 8y ago
  It can make sense if they would like to know things such as how long the page load took. That is not something you can measure by only looking at the request logs, especially if the page uses a lot of javascript.
Klathmon 8y ago
I'm always surprised people are willing to give random developers that much control over their browser when installing extensions like that. I've had so many things break because someone somewhere didn't think a request was valid enough and blocked it and it was put into a common blocklist. WebRTC, several fonts, first party analytics, even whole services like Google shopping were blocked entirely because "they are ads" or they were "trackers". We even had to modify an app which was using css modules one time because class names were compiled down to a hex encoded hash of the css properties, and any class names beginning with `ad` were blocked by EasyList at one point... It is giving an uncomfortable amount of power to a very small amount of developers. And it ends up ruining efforts to avoid 3rd party analytics because not only are first party harder to implement and maintain in many cases, but they get blocked just the same for very innocuous reasons, and give worse insights in some ways. Just look at the list of what EasyList considers "unacceptable data to gather" in first party analytics [0]. Things like the useragent, timezone, IP address, and language are considered "personal information" and should be blocked even in first party scripts with EasyList! IP address or useragent alone literally makes all first party tracking impossible... [0] https://easylist.to/2011/08/31/what-is-acceptable-first-party-tracking.html https://easylist.to/2011/08/31/what-is-acceptable-first-part...
- chopin 8y ago
  There is no guarantee that your first party tracker does not relay information to a third party via your web server. Furthermore, at least some of the data you list is considered personal information under GDPR. Block access if you want but do not collect personal data about me. What I am hating most is that sites where I am willing to send money to (web shops) do these things and send data to ad net works too, no less.
  - Klathmon 8y ago
    > There is no guarantee that your first party tracker does not relay information to a third party via your web server. You have no guarantees at all, but that information is always sent across, and in many cases must be sent to even make a request. You literally can't prevent an IP address from being "sent" because it's needed to route the information back to you. Sending an "Accept-Language" header lets a website be translated into multiple languages. And virtually 100% of my users want times and dates in their local time, not UTC. Just because it's potentially identifying information doesn't mean you can block it and pat yourself on the back as "stopping tracking". When you don't allow an IP address to be sent, you have just created a system where you can arbitrarily choose literally any request and block it under that rule. It's like making a law against breathing oxygen, then arresting anyone that you don't like for any reason because they are breaking at least that law.
- pjc50 8y ago
  If you take all those pieces of information together you're very close to uniquely identifying the user, in a way which could be correlated with similar analytics from other websites if and when your analytics data is leaked or sold. Sometimes people really mean it when they say they don't want to be tracked: they want to leave no footprint at all. Sometimes people just want the website to load as fast as possible by discarding as much Javascript and as many requests as they can get away with. But don't forget the good old HTTP access logs, which give you all this information anyway without having to load extra scripts.
  - Klathmon 8y ago

by r3bl 8y ago

joosters 8y ago

I find it ridiculous that first party analytics requires extra requests at all - there's enough log information from my actual page requests, you don't need to make extra ones. If your logging is so inefficient, it should be blocked.

Thiez 8y ago
It can make sense if they would like to know things such as how long the page load took. That is not something you can measure by only looking at the request logs, especially if the page uses a lot of javascript.

Klathmon 8y ago

I'm always surprised people are willing to give random developers that much control over their browser when installing extensions like that. I've had so many things break because someone somewhere didn't think a request was valid enough and blocked it and it was put into a common blocklist. WebRTC, several fonts, first party analytics, even whole services like Google shopping were blocked entirely because "they are ads" or they were "trackers". We even had to modify an app which was using css modules one time because class names were compiled down to a hex encoded hash of the css properties, and any class names beginning with `ad` were blocked by EasyList at one point... It is giving an uncomfortable amount of power to a very small amount of developers. And it ends up ruining efforts to avoid 3rd party analytics because not only are first party harder to implement and maintain in many cases, but they get blocked just the same for very innocuous reasons, and give worse insights in some ways. Just look at the list of what EasyList considers "unacceptable data to gather" in first party analytics [0]. Things like the useragent, timezone, IP address, and language are considered "personal information" and should be blocked even in first party scripts with EasyList! IP address or useragent alone literally makes all first party tracking impossible... [0] https://easylist.to/2011/08/31/what-is-acceptable-first-party-tracking.html https://easylist.to/2011/08/31/what-is-acceptable-first-part...

chopin 8y ago
There is no guarantee that your first party tracker does not relay information to a third party via your web server. Furthermore, at least some of the data you list is considered personal information under GDPR. Block access if you want but do not collect personal data about me. What I am hating most is that sites where I am willing to send money to (web shops) do these things and send data to ad net works too, no less.
- Klathmon 8y ago
  > There is no guarantee that your first party tracker does not relay information to a third party via your web server. You have no guarantees at all, but that information is always sent across, and in many cases must be sent to even make a request. You literally can't prevent an IP address from being "sent" because it's needed to route the information back to you. Sending an "Accept-Language" header lets a website be translated into multiple languages. And virtually 100% of my users want times and dates in their local time, not UTC. Just because it's potentially identifying information doesn't mean you can block it and pat yourself on the back as "stopping tracking". When you don't allow an IP address to be sent, you have just created a system where you can arbitrarily choose literally any request and block it under that rule. It's like making a law against breathing oxygen, then arresting anyone that you don't like for any reason because they are breaking at least that law.
pjc50 8y ago
If you take all those pieces of information together you're very close to uniquely identifying the user, in a way which could be correlated with similar analytics from other websites if and when your analytics data is leaked or sold. Sometimes people really mean it when they say they don't want to be tracked: they want to leave no footprint at all. Sometimes people just want the website to load as fast as possible by discarding as much Javascript and as many requests as they can get away with. But don't forget the good old HTTP access logs, which give you all this information anyway without having to load extra scripts.
- Klathmon 8y ago