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There's a big difference between first- and third-party trackers though. Google Analytics belongs to the former category and does by default not collect any per

There's a big difference between first- and third-party trackers though. Google Analytics belongs to the former category and does by default not collect any personally identifying information. Third-party trackers, however, usually set a unique identificator for each user and use this identificator for all subsequent requests, and as such (invisibly) track users across the web. In general, it's the third-party trackers and their cookies that you should be wary of as they are most often used for extensive tracking across different websites.

sroussey 7y ago
It tracks IP addresses, though you can set it to remove the last byte.
gloflo 7y ago
Google is a third party when it is about you (first party) using a Mozilla service (second party). Mozilla exposes all its visitors to Google, it tells Google what they looked at and when, and more. This is horribly inappropriate if Mozilla touts itself as privacy protecting.
- stekern 7y ago
  > Google is a third party when it is about you (first party) using a Mozilla service (second party). Sure, but that is not the distinction I was making though. Google Analytics is a first-party tracker in the sense that it sets a cookie on the same domain that the script is loaded on. Contrast this to a third-party tracker which sets a cookie on its own domain, and as such the same cookie will be reused for all websites using this third-party tracker. > it tells Google what they looked at and when As far as I know only Mozilla has access to the data collected through their Google Analytics account. Third-party trackers, however, often aggregate collected data across a wide range of websites, and might sell augmented, highly profiled user data to advertisers. I have not seen any reports of Google using Google Analytics in such a way, but the data is nonetheless stored on their servers, so you will have to trust that they won't abuse their power. EDIT: As mentioned by throwaway9d0291, it seems like there are settings for enabling or disabling the sharing of Google Analytics data with Google. Not sure if this is opt-in or opt-out though, but this means that it possible to use the service without Google using the collected data.
swebs 7y ago
Could you please tell me what you think the concepts of "first party" and "third party" mean?
- stekern 7y ago
  By first-party tracker I mean a tracker that sets a cookie on the domain that it was loaded from (e.g. website.com). A third-party tracker sets a cookie on its own domain (e.g. sketchytracker.com), thus allowing for cross-website tracking.
autoexec 7y ago
> Google Analytics belongs to the former category and does by default not collect any personally identifying information. IP addresses, timestamps, and webpages viewed over time is absolutely personally identifiable information.

sroussey 7y ago

It tracks IP addresses, though you can set it to remove the last byte.

gloflo 7y ago

Google is a third party when it is about you (first party) using a Mozilla service (second party). Mozilla exposes all its visitors to Google, it tells Google what they looked at and when, and more. This is horribly inappropriate if Mozilla touts itself as privacy protecting.

stekern 7y ago
> Google is a third party when it is about you (first party) using a Mozilla service (second party). Sure, but that is not the distinction I was making though. Google Analytics is a first-party tracker in the sense that it sets a cookie on the same domain that the script is loaded on. Contrast this to a third-party tracker which sets a cookie on its own domain, and as such the same cookie will be reused for all websites using this third-party tracker. > it tells Google what they looked at and when As far as I know only Mozilla has access to the data collected through their Google Analytics account. Third-party trackers, however, often aggregate collected data across a wide range of websites, and might sell augmented, highly profiled user data to advertisers. I have not seen any reports of Google using Google Analytics in such a way, but the data is nonetheless stored on their servers, so you will have to trust that they won't abuse their power. EDIT: As mentioned by throwaway9d0291, it seems like there are settings for enabling or disabling the sharing of Google Analytics data with Google. Not sure if this is opt-in or opt-out though, but this means that it possible to use the service without Google using the collected data.

swebs 7y ago

Could you please tell me what you think the concepts of "first party" and "third party" mean?

stekern 7y ago
By first-party tracker I mean a tracker that sets a cookie on the domain that it was loaded from (e.g. website.com). A third-party tracker sets a cookie on its own domain (e.g. sketchytracker.com), thus allowing for cross-website tracking.

autoexec 7y ago

> Google Analytics belongs to the former category and does by default not collect any personally identifying information. IP addresses, timestamps, and webpages viewed over time is absolutely personally identifiable information.