5 ms·

Does anyone know whether this service generates any revenue for Google? I can’t see selling fonts data as something desirable by 3rd party companies but maybe

by smaili 7y ago

Does anyone know whether this service generates any revenue for Google? I can’t see selling fonts data as something desirable by 3rd party companies but maybe that’s just me?

rememberlenny 7y ago
It does not, and they don't sell the data or use it for any tracking.
- partiallypro 7y ago
  They likely do get some data from it, their own analytics page has data they pull from it.
- skosch 7y ago
  Their FAQ says that they don't (currently) use cookies, but it also includes the sentence "Google Fonts logs records of the CSS and the font file requests, and access to this data is kept secure", so they could still do some IP-based analytics. More importantly though, it gives Google accurate insight into web traffic (many users block Google Analytics, but almost everyone loads web fonts), and it allows them to crawl websites more easily – before web fonts, many websites used pre-rendered PNGs to show web-unsafe fonts, which made crawling impossible. Google has poured a lot of money into this, the fonts are free and open source, and the users aren't the product. Overall, I think it's a rare win-win story in this age of dystopian adtech.
  - skrebbel 7y ago
    > Google has poured a lot of money into this Why, though? Not charity, I'd assume. The only other answers I can come up with are pretty damn nefarious.
    - vatueil 7y ago
      The parent comment said: > it allows them to crawl websites more easily – before web fonts, many websites used pre-rendered PNGs to show web-unsafe fonts, which made crawling impossible
    - cameronbrown 7y ago
      > it allows them to crawl websites more easily – before web fonts, many websites used pre-rendered PNGs to show web-unsafe fonts, which made crawling impossible.
    - raphlinus 7y ago
      I can speak to this a little, in terms of pitches we made to management to get resources for our little project. None of this is authoritative. 1. A lot of text was rendered into PNGs, and that made the web less searchable, as well as less accessible, slower to load, and less mobile-friendly. All 4 of these factors do have economic impact at Google scale. 2. Fonts were one of the few features that Flash had that HTML5 was lacking, and we wanted to accelerate that transition. Again, mobile was one of the major driving factors. 3. For a while, we were organizationally funded under Google Docs. Again, fonts were one of the major missing features compared with Microsoft Office, so filling that gap was strategic. Here, our open source approach really paid off, otherwise dealing with proprietary font licensing in the context of documents that can be shared and copied would have been nightmarish. 4. To the extent that you are able to make the case that fonts make ads better (or advertisers happier), getting modest amounts of funding ceases to be a problem. To be clear, when I was on the team this was more of a glimmer of future abundant resources than day-to-day reality. Lastly, while "charity" isn't exactly the right word, the motivations of the people working on the team are/were basically that we love fonts and want to make the Internet better. At Google scale, we were able to sell the project using basically a combination of the above arguments. Never once when I was on the team were we asked to implement any form of individual user tracking, nor did I hear a suggestion of such a thing. All our work on collecting analytics was to improve performance and quantify our impact. I have no reason to believe things have changed on that front since I was directly involved.
      - nl 7y ago
        Are you the Raph who built Advogato? I loved that site.
        raphlinus 7y ago
        Thanks! Yes, I've had quite a varied career so far :)
      - skrebbel 7y ago
        Wow, that makes a lot of sense. Clearly, my imagination was lacking. Thanks!
  - earthboundkid 7y ago
    I assume that Google uses Analytics and Fonts as part of its algorithm for determining if a site is popular when creating search engine results. Am I wrong? Does anyone know on or off the record?
- jackhack 7y ago
  yet.
- BiteCode_dev 7y ago
  I'd like your thoughts on this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22394730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22394730
draw_down 7y ago
Who said anything about third parties?
speedgoose 7y ago
In addition to some data from websites which do not use Google analytics, they may like to have the power of pushing the "comic sans ms" font or having a * { display: none !important;} for non chrome browsers.
cosmie 7y ago
Google doesn't directly sell data in the first place - they leverage the data they have to improve the value of their ad network (in the form of enhanced targeting and attribution capabilities). It's actually in their best interest to _protect_ the data they have on you, as it's a primary competitive advantage they have over other ad networks. As far as the unsavory interpretation of how they could conceivably use Fonts data to further that end: calls to download their fonts are another touchpoint with the Google ecosystem, and a theoretical vector for further tracking the browsing behavior and device graph of an individual. That said, traditional font licensing for commercial use is absolutely bonkers[1][2][3]. Even if Google is using the data they collect from serving font files to feed into their user tracking, they've done a service to the web[4]. [1] https://designshack.net/articles/typography/what-is-a-font-license-and-do-i-need-one/ https://designshack.net/articles/typography/what-is-a-font-l... [2] Working at a creative agency, I learned that we can't so much as legally use a client-dictated (and licensed) font in a mockup without paying thousands of dollars for a license ourselves. [3] Webfonts tend to be licensed on a per-pageview basis. One client got hit with a temporary flood of scraping/bot traffic, and the biggest economic impact was the unexpected six-figure font bill that month. We convinced them to put the site behind Cloudflare and used a Worker to strip out the font include for suspected bot traffic and inadvertently lowered their licensing cost by more than our annual retainer. [4] I can't say how it is everywhere, but working at one of the top three marketing agencies, Google Fonts are the only approved open-source fonts we're allowed to use (since they're primarily free for commercial use, as well). Not every client is able or willing to absorb a 5-6 figure font line item for every engagement, so without Google Fonts we'd (and I presume other major agencies) would be stuck with using system default fonts everywhere.

by smaili 7y ago

Does anyone know whether this service generates any revenue for Google? I can’t see selling fonts data as something desirable by 3rd party companies but maybe that’s just me?

rememberlenny 7y ago

It does not, and they don't sell the data or use it for any tracking.

partiallypro 7y ago
They likely do get some data from it, their own analytics page has data they pull from it.
skosch 7y ago
Their FAQ says that they don't (currently) use cookies, but it also includes the sentence "Google Fonts logs records of the CSS and the font file requests, and access to this data is kept secure", so they could still do some IP-based analytics. More importantly though, it gives Google accurate insight into web traffic (many users block Google Analytics, but almost everyone loads web fonts), and it allows them to crawl websites more easily – before web fonts, many websites used pre-rendered PNGs to show web-unsafe fonts, which made crawling impossible. Google has poured a lot of money into this, the fonts are free and open source, and the users aren't the product. Overall, I think it's a rare win-win story in this age of dystopian adtech.
- skrebbel 7y ago
  > Google has poured a lot of money into this Why, though? Not charity, I'd assume. The only other answers I can come up with are pretty damn nefarious.
  - vatueil 7y ago
    The parent comment said: > it allows them to crawl websites more easily – before web fonts, many websites used pre-rendered PNGs to show web-unsafe fonts, which made crawling impossible
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    > it allows them to crawl websites more easily – before web fonts, many websites used pre-rendered PNGs to show web-unsafe fonts, which made crawling impossible.
  - raphlinus 7y ago
    I can speak to this a little, in terms of pitches we made to management to get resources for our little project. None of this is authoritative. 1. A lot of text was rendered into PNGs, and that made the web less searchable, as well as less accessible, slower to load, and less mobile-friendly. All 4 of these factors do have economic impact at Google scale. 2. Fonts were one of the few features that Flash had that HTML5 was lacking, and we wanted to accelerate that transition. Again, mobile was one of the major driving factors. 3. For a while, we were organizationally funded under Google Docs. Again, fonts were one of the major missing features compared with Microsoft Office, so filling that gap was strategic. Here, our open source approach really paid off, otherwise dealing with proprietary font licensing in the context of documents that can be shared and copied would have been nightmarish. 4. To the extent that you are able to make the case that fonts make ads better (or advertisers happier), getting modest amounts of funding ceases to be a problem. To be clear, when I was on the team this was more of a glimmer of future abundant resources than day-to-day reality. Lastly, while "charity" isn't exactly the right word, the motivations of the people working on the team are/were basically that we love fonts and want to make the Internet better. At Google scale, we were able to sell the project using basically a combination of the above arguments. Never once when I was on the team were we asked to implement any form of individual user tracking, nor did I hear a suggestion of such a thing. All our work on collecting analytics was to improve performance and quantify our impact. I have no reason to believe things have changed on that front since I was directly involved.
    - nl 7y ago
      Are you the Raph who built Advogato? I loved that site.
      - raphlinus 7y ago
        Thanks! Yes, I've had quite a varied career so far :)
    - skrebbel 7y ago
      Wow, that makes a lot of sense. Clearly, my imagination was lacking. Thanks!
- earthboundkid 7y ago
  I assume that Google uses Analytics and Fonts as part of its algorithm for determining if a site is popular when creating search engine results. Am I wrong? Does anyone know on or off the record?
jackhack 7y ago
yet.
BiteCode_dev 7y ago
I'd like your thoughts on this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22394730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22394730

draw_down 7y ago

Who said anything about third parties?

speedgoose 7y ago

In addition to some data from websites which do not use Google analytics, they may like to have the power of pushing the "comic sans ms" font or having a * { display: none !important;} for non chrome browsers.

cosmie 7y ago

Google doesn't directly sell data in the first place - they leverage the data they have to improve the value of their ad network (in the form of enhanced targeting and attribution capabilities). It's actually in their best interest to _protect_ the data they have on you, as it's a primary competitive advantage they have over other ad networks. As far as the unsavory interpretation of how they could conceivably use Fonts data to further that end: calls to download their fonts are another touchpoint with the Google ecosystem, and a theoretical vector for further tracking the browsing behavior and device graph of an individual. That said, traditional font licensing for commercial use is absolutely bonkers[1][2][3]. Even if Google is using the data they collect from serving font files to feed into their user tracking, they've done a service to the web[4]. [1] https://designshack.net/articles/typography/what-is-a-font-license-and-do-i-need-one/ https://designshack.net/articles/typography/what-is-a-font-l... [2] Working at a creative agency, I learned that we can't so much as legally use a client-dictated (and licensed) font in a mockup without paying thousands of dollars for a license ourselves. [3] Webfonts tend to be licensed on a per-pageview basis. One client got hit with a temporary flood of scraping/bot traffic, and the biggest economic impact was the unexpected six-figure font bill that month. We convinced them to put the site behind Cloudflare and used a Worker to strip out the font include for suspected bot traffic and inadvertently lowered their licensing cost by more than our annual retainer. [4] I can't say how it is everywhere, but working at one of the top three marketing agencies, Google Fonts are the only approved open-source fonts we're allowed to use (since they're primarily free for commercial use, as well). Not every client is able or willing to absorb a 5-6 figure font line item for every engagement, so without Google Fonts we'd (and I presume other major agencies) would be stuck with using system default fonts everywhere.