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I'm also concerned with the general blacklists that are showing up. Some of the analytics companies in the list they are using from github don't use any particu
by codezero 8y ago
I'm also concerned with the general blacklists that are showing up. Some of the analytics companies in the list they are using from github don't use any particular fingerprinting technologies outside of setting a cookie. Given that there are a wide array of more aggressive and seemingly more malicious ways to fingerprint, bundling up cookie usage with that seems like a recipe for throwing the baby out with the bathwater. This is happening throughout the browser world right now though. There's no way for a "good" analytics company that sells a service to a website owner, with no intent to share, sell, or aggregate that data with third parties to differentiate itself from a malicious ad network that is intent on cross-device fingerprinting, persisting your identity, and knowing who you are everywhere you go on the web.
Until there is some kind of official agreed upon terms/privacy policy that can be adhered to/audited, this will keep happening. It will lead the already advanced bad actors to further their game of whack-a-mole, and push the "good" companies to do more and more questionable things to avoid going out of business as moves like this cripple them.
To be clear, I'm not saying that the analytics industry hasn't been complicit in its own punishment, it's just come to a head in a way that I feel warrants more cooperative action than blacklists based on... what criteria?
- charlesdaniels 8y agoThat would suggest that there is such a thing as a "good" analytics company. From my perspective as and end user, why would it be desirable for me to facilitate the "analytics companies" business model? Sure, far-reaching blacklists are probably bad for analytics companies across the board, regardless of their intent. But as an end user, why should I care?
- codezero 8y agoAs an end user it shouldn’t be a concern you have as long as the data isn’t used for things you would find surprising. Right now there’s no way for any analytics company to convince you they don’t do anything surprising. I want my customers to run successful businesses and to use the data we collect on their behalf to help them do that. Why should you care? Mostly hypotheticals, but as said above, it shouldn’t matter to you. If analytics works, we can drive down costs, and improve how companies spend money on marketing and product development. This should mean more affordable and or higher quality products and services.