3 ms·

I don't understand. How is it better privacy-wise to give your users' data to big tech company B from California (Cloudflare) instead of big tech company A fro

by fefe23 6y ago

I don't understand. How is it better privacy-wise to give your users' data to big tech company B from California (Cloudflare) instead of big tech company A from California (Google)? I as your user did not consent to you giving my data to anybody in the first place. In fact I did not even want YOU to collect data on me. Surely the privacy problem is collecting your users' data and giving it away in the first place, not who you give it to?

dylan604 6y ago
I'm not a fan of 3rd party either. I think my comments in this thread show that pretty clearly. However, we know that GA data is used to push sales of ads. Cloudflare is claiming that they are making their service without the sale to use of that data. For those of use that are capable of setting up, maintaining, etc a 1st party analytics package, a 3rd party solution will always bring up questions. For the 99.8% of the rest of the world, someone that allows them to copy&paste a bit of text that allows them a nice GUI to that data with charts and maps and pretty pictures, it is well worth it to them. Add on top that access to those analytics is not shared does seem to be a nice selling point. However, the 99.8% that want this type of service probably doesn't care/know/understand the difference between this and GA.
tomschlick 6y ago
The idea of Cloudflare over Google is in their business model to me. Google is in the business of giving stuff away for free (mostly) and then harvesting as much data as they can to build ad profiles on you. Cloudflare is in the business of charging money for their services (other than the free tier which is really just a sales funnel) and nothing I have seen from them is about selling or sharing that data in a non anonymized way.
hinkley 6y ago
You know how in the police procedural dramas the detective has to tell people that they aren't from Immigration/DEA in order to get them to stop running away/talk to them? It's the same Principle of Least Privilege. You divide power between parties that have no incentive to collaborate, and the little guy doesn't get squished as bad (or at least, as fast).

by fefe23 6y ago

dylan604 6y ago

I'm not a fan of 3rd party either. I think my comments in this thread show that pretty clearly. However, we know that GA data is used to push sales of ads. Cloudflare is claiming that they are making their service without the sale to use of that data. For those of use that are capable of setting up, maintaining, etc a 1st party analytics package, a 3rd party solution will always bring up questions. For the 99.8% of the rest of the world, someone that allows them to copy&paste a bit of text that allows them a nice GUI to that data with charts and maps and pretty pictures, it is well worth it to them. Add on top that access to those analytics is not shared does seem to be a nice selling point. However, the 99.8% that want this type of service probably doesn't care/know/understand the difference between this and GA.

tomschlick 6y ago

The idea of Cloudflare over Google is in their business model to me. Google is in the business of giving stuff away for free (mostly) and then harvesting as much data as they can to build ad profiles on you. Cloudflare is in the business of charging money for their services (other than the free tier which is really just a sales funnel) and nothing I have seen from them is about selling or sharing that data in a non anonymized way.

hinkley 6y ago

You know how in the police procedural dramas the detective has to tell people that they aren't from Immigration/DEA in order to get them to stop running away/talk to them? It's the same Principle of Least Privilege. You divide power between parties that have no incentive to collaborate, and the little guy doesn't get squished as bad (or at least, as fast).