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The author is very naive on what Google Analytics does: > That doesn't mean there might not be cookies set on google-analytics.com. I would imagine there are s

The author is very naive on what Google Analytics does: > That doesn't mean there might not be cookies set on google-analytics.com. I would imagine there are some that are used for debugging and monitoring purposes, for example. Google links GA data to their DoubleClick and Adwords cookies. So it's not just "debugging", they're collecting data and using it to create audiences in Adwords and the DoubleClick products. As a user it's only available if you pay for Analytics 360, but Google gets the data either way even if you don't get to use it.

TomAnthony 6y ago
I think you have misunderstood what he is saying with that sentence. He is not speaking about "GA data", but is discussing the very precise issue of whether HTTP 3rd party cookies, set on cross-domain requests to google-analytics.com, being blocked has an impact on the the functionality of GA. Those cookies being in contrast to 1st party cookies set by GA's javascript code.
- t0mas88 6y ago
  No, he is using this example; "I would imagine there are some that are used for debugging and monitoring purposes, for example." While he knows full well that GA uses third party cookies to support their audience creation features, not "debugging and monitoring". And from the other comments it sounds like he did that on purpose because he has a vested interest in GA.
  - SimoAhava 6y ago
    Yes, Google uses third-party cookies to support building cross-site profiles of users. This is an opt-in feature via GA admin, where the settings for the property require "Advertising Features" to be enabled. This can also be controlled on tracker- and tag-level on the site itself. What you're misunderstanding is that google-analytics.com doesn't leverage this behavior. The third-party cookies are written on doubleclick.net, to which GA's analytics.js library sends a payload of data if advertising features have been enabled. So everything I wrote in the article stands. google-analytics.com is not being used for cross-site tracking. Any third-party cookies written on that domain are not involved in either first-party tracking by analytics.js, or the audience building efforts by doubleclick.net. Your insults are completely unnecessary, especially when they're based on a complete misunderstanding of how Google's advertising and analytics stack works.
  - SimoAhava 6y ago
    And because I want to be constructive, here's how the DoubleClick redirect works. If the site has advertising features enabled, a task in analytics.js named "displayFeaturesTask" fires after the /collect hit to Google Analytics has been sent. This task compiles a small payload of information and ships it to https://stats.g.doubleclick.net/ https://stats.g.doubleclick.net/. This payload includes, among other things, the UA ID of the Google Analytics property, and the Client ID of the user (same UA ID and Client ID that's sent with the GA hits). When you go into Analytics 360 and build those audiences, you are essentially building a dataset of Client IDs that should be included in the audience. When that data set is passed to DoubleClick, DC can then link those Client IDs to the third-party cookie written on doubleclick.net and assigned to the same Client IDs. That's how it can leverage both your GA data and its cross-site tracking network to target the audiences. As I wrote, any possible 3P cookies written on google-analytics.com are not used in this process. The request to google-analytics.com only leverages the GET/POST payload sent with the request itself.
blacksmith_tb 6y ago
As someone who has wrestle with GA and GTM regularly, I think it's fair to say that the author (Simo Ahava[1]) is the preeminent authority on how they work, and his blog is generally more useful than the official documentation Google provides. 1: https://www.simoahava.com/about-simo-ahava/ https://www.simoahava.com/about-simo-ahava/
- mywittyname 6y ago
  Yeah, parent comment probably doesn't realize who Simo is. It's like calling out John Carmack for being naive about OpenGL.
  - z3rgl1ng 6y ago
    2nd, Simo knows what he’s talking about.
- t0mas88 6y ago
  In that case it's not nativity and sounds more like deliberately muddying the water on Google's practices while he knows about the audience features. That's worse in my opinion.
- shostack 6y ago
  As someone who has setup and managed countless GA accounts for his career, it at least gave me a good chuckle. As others have noted, Simo is the go-to resource for anything technical and nuanced with GA and GTM. When I'm troubleshooting some issue with them, I know if I see his site pop up at the top that he's either solved the problem, or confirmed it is a much bigger issue that is going to ruin my day.
snowwrestler 6y ago
This is not correct; you can see in Google’s documentation and legal documents that the GA service is distinct from DoubleClick and Tag Manager, although these three services are often implemented together (in fact Google recommends this). GA places both first and third party cookies but only needs first party cookies to do basic reporting.
- t0mas88 6y ago
  The service is distinct, but go and log in to a GA 360 account and see for yourself that you can select users based on the pages they have seen and send that group to DoubleClick. That's done through a third party cookie that the author conveniently forgot about.
bad_user 6y ago
That's irrelevant. If a cookie isn't shared between websites then the analytics software can't easily track you between websites, which is what ITR helps with. Also the publisher has to willingly share that data for use by Adwords. And in Europe at least sharing that data is illegal without user consent due to GDPR. Create a new Google account, go to Google Analytics, register a new domain and you'll see those options off.

TomAnthony 6y ago

I think you have misunderstood what he is saying with that sentence. He is not speaking about "GA data", but is discussing the very precise issue of whether HTTP 3rd party cookies, set on cross-domain requests to google-analytics.com, being blocked has an impact on the the functionality of GA. Those cookies being in contrast to 1st party cookies set by GA's javascript code.

t0mas88 6y ago
No, he is using this example; "I would imagine there are some that are used for debugging and monitoring purposes, for example." While he knows full well that GA uses third party cookies to support their audience creation features, not "debugging and monitoring". And from the other comments it sounds like he did that on purpose because he has a vested interest in GA.
- SimoAhava 6y ago
  Yes, Google uses third-party cookies to support building cross-site profiles of users. This is an opt-in feature via GA admin, where the settings for the property require "Advertising Features" to be enabled. This can also be controlled on tracker- and tag-level on the site itself. What you're misunderstanding is that google-analytics.com doesn't leverage this behavior. The third-party cookies are written on doubleclick.net, to which GA's analytics.js library sends a payload of data if advertising features have been enabled. So everything I wrote in the article stands. google-analytics.com is not being used for cross-site tracking. Any third-party cookies written on that domain are not involved in either first-party tracking by analytics.js, or the audience building efforts by doubleclick.net. Your insults are completely unnecessary, especially when they're based on a complete misunderstanding of how Google's advertising and analytics stack works.
- SimoAhava 6y ago
  And because I want to be constructive, here's how the DoubleClick redirect works. If the site has advertising features enabled, a task in analytics.js named "displayFeaturesTask" fires after the /collect hit to Google Analytics has been sent. This task compiles a small payload of information and ships it to https://stats.g.doubleclick.net/ https://stats.g.doubleclick.net/. This payload includes, among other things, the UA ID of the Google Analytics property, and the Client ID of the user (same UA ID and Client ID that's sent with the GA hits). When you go into Analytics 360 and build those audiences, you are essentially building a dataset of Client IDs that should be included in the audience. When that data set is passed to DoubleClick, DC can then link those Client IDs to the third-party cookie written on doubleclick.net and assigned to the same Client IDs. That's how it can leverage both your GA data and its cross-site tracking network to target the audiences. As I wrote, any possible 3P cookies written on google-analytics.com are not used in this process. The request to google-analytics.com only leverages the GET/POST payload sent with the request itself.

blacksmith_tb 6y ago

As someone who has wrestle with GA and GTM regularly, I think it's fair to say that the author (Simo Ahava[1]) is the preeminent authority on how they work, and his blog is generally more useful than the official documentation Google provides. 1: https://www.simoahava.com/about-simo-ahava/ https://www.simoahava.com/about-simo-ahava/

mywittyname 6y ago
Yeah, parent comment probably doesn't realize who Simo is. It's like calling out John Carmack for being naive about OpenGL.
- z3rgl1ng 6y ago
  2nd, Simo knows what he’s talking about.
t0mas88 6y ago
In that case it's not nativity and sounds more like deliberately muddying the water on Google's practices while he knows about the audience features. That's worse in my opinion.
shostack 6y ago
As someone who has setup and managed countless GA accounts for his career, it at least gave me a good chuckle. As others have noted, Simo is the go-to resource for anything technical and nuanced with GA and GTM. When I'm troubleshooting some issue with them, I know if I see his site pop up at the top that he's either solved the problem, or confirmed it is a much bigger issue that is going to ruin my day.

snowwrestler 6y ago

This is not correct; you can see in Google’s documentation and legal documents that the GA service is distinct from DoubleClick and Tag Manager, although these three services are often implemented together (in fact Google recommends this). GA places both first and third party cookies but only needs first party cookies to do basic reporting.

t0mas88 6y ago
The service is distinct, but go and log in to a GA 360 account and see for yourself that you can select users based on the pages they have seen and send that group to DoubleClick. That's done through a third party cookie that the author conveniently forgot about.

bad_user 6y ago

That's irrelevant. If a cookie isn't shared between websites then the analytics software can't easily track you between websites, which is what ITR helps with. Also the publisher has to willingly share that data for use by Adwords. And in Europe at least sharing that data is illegal without user consent due to GDPR. Create a new Google account, go to Google Analytics, register a new domain and you'll see those options off.