5 ms·

....I have lots of questions about this "homegrown web tracking tool" (assuming this isn't still part of a joke?). What??? Was this opt-in? Did they track acros

by podiki 5y ago

....I have lots of questions about this "homegrown web tracking tool" (assuming this isn't still part of a joke?). What??? Was this opt-in? Did they track across everyone? What was collected? This is troubling, to say the least.

somehnguy 5y ago
Serious question: why is this troubling? I don't see the big deal, at all. This is absolutely nothing compared to what big advertising & social media do. Taking a count of people who hit ctr+c? Who cares, I can't see any possible scenario of how that data could be used in a bad way unless you think SO is going to email employers with a time spent & ctrl+c count or something?
- cryptoz 5y ago
  Not OP, but, the troubling parts for me are 1) the tone of the post, and 2) the larger-than-SO issue of the gap in understanding copy+paste for the average user. 1) The post says "unfortunately" they cannot tie logged-out users to their logged-in account. In no moral way is this a reasonable perspective to me. It is extremely fortunate that SO does not build the tech to track you as a logged-in user when you are logged out. That's a bad precedent to set. Sure, some sites do that, but I think they shouldn't. Other examples of the tone in the article abound. It's troubling for sure. 2) It is up to the web devs themselves to decide what goes in your clipboard. Many users don't know this. Sites that exploit the gap between user expectation of privacy while copy+paste as well as tracking do not match with reality. Stack Overflow is merely one of many players here, but they way they exploit this gap is mildly upsetting. Something needs to be done, either technically or communication to users, about copy+paste reality.
  - somehnguy 5y ago
    Thanks for the explanation. Honestly I still don't see the big deal though. It's just a little bit of fun with an interesting statistic, not everything needs to be so doom & gloom serious.
    - podiki 5y ago
      I wasn't trying to be all "doom and gloom," but as one concerned about tracking (yes, all the social media and stuff you mention, which I try to be very conscious about) the casual mention of adding in tracking to a particular event really could have used more context and explanation (especially given the technical audience). I love see the data analysis on SO, but there is a general need for transparency and opt-in on the internet. Not saying this was a huge deal, but the fact that it can be so casual speaks to the larger issues I'd say.
benpopper1 5y ago
Hey there - I work at SO. Understand your concern and wanted to share some details. Browsers fire a copy event when you copy, just like a click event fires when you press on a button. We just added analytics to it like we would any other feature on the site. We didn't track the content of your copy (browsers don't let you see the text content) but we did track the following: Meta data about the post and it's parent post like the id, owner, score, tags, if it was a question/answer, if it was accepted If your copy was from a code block or from text content The Referer header Standard analytics properties like the date/time, approximated location, account metadata Here's our privacy policy on analytics: "Analytics information Stack Overflow uses data analytics to ensure site functionality and to optimize our Product and Service offerings to you. We use web browser and mobile analytics to allow us to understand Network and Apps functionality. In doing so, we record information including, for example how often you visit the Network, how often you contribute content, Network and Apps performance data, errors and debugging information, and the type of activity you engage in while on the Network or in your use of our Products and Services. We may on occasion share this information with third parties for research or product and services optimization."
- podiki 5y ago
  I appreciate the response and detail here, would have liked to see that in the original post.
- quesera 5y ago
  > Browsers fire a copy event when you copy, just like a click event fires when you press on a button. We just added analytics to it like we would any other feature on the site. This is a bit misleading. More accurate would be: Stack Overflow is able to configure our web pages to track certain of your activities on the page, including Copy and Click. We do that.
  - jodrellblank 5y ago
    This is a bit misleading; "onclick" and "oncopy" are part of the HTML standard that "must be supported by all HTML elements [...] and that must be supported by all Document objects" [1] https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/webappapis.html#handler-onclick https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/webappapis.html#handl... [2] https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/webappapis.html#handler-oncopy https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/webappapis.html#handl...

by podiki 5y ago

somehnguy 5y ago

Serious question: why is this troubling? I don't see the big deal, at all. This is absolutely nothing compared to what big advertising & social media do. Taking a count of people who hit ctr+c? Who cares, I can't see any possible scenario of how that data could be used in a bad way unless you think SO is going to email employers with a time spent & ctrl+c count or something?

cryptoz 5y ago
Not OP, but, the troubling parts for me are 1) the tone of the post, and 2) the larger-than-SO issue of the gap in understanding copy+paste for the average user. 1) The post says "unfortunately" they cannot tie logged-out users to their logged-in account. In no moral way is this a reasonable perspective to me. It is extremely fortunate that SO does not build the tech to track you as a logged-in user when you are logged out. That's a bad precedent to set. Sure, some sites do that, but I think they shouldn't. Other examples of the tone in the article abound. It's troubling for sure. 2) It is up to the web devs themselves to decide what goes in your clipboard. Many users don't know this. Sites that exploit the gap between user expectation of privacy while copy+paste as well as tracking do not match with reality. Stack Overflow is merely one of many players here, but they way they exploit this gap is mildly upsetting. Something needs to be done, either technically or communication to users, about copy+paste reality.
- somehnguy 5y ago
  Thanks for the explanation. Honestly I still don't see the big deal though. It's just a little bit of fun with an interesting statistic, not everything needs to be so doom & gloom serious.
  - podiki 5y ago
    I wasn't trying to be all "doom and gloom," but as one concerned about tracking (yes, all the social media and stuff you mention, which I try to be very conscious about) the casual mention of adding in tracking to a particular event really could have used more context and explanation (especially given the technical audience). I love see the data analysis on SO, but there is a general need for transparency and opt-in on the internet. Not saying this was a huge deal, but the fact that it can be so casual speaks to the larger issues I'd say.

benpopper1 5y ago

Hey there - I work at SO. Understand your concern and wanted to share some details. Browsers fire a copy event when you copy, just like a click event fires when you press on a button. We just added analytics to it like we would any other feature on the site. We didn't track the content of your copy (browsers don't let you see the text content) but we did track the following: Meta data about the post and it's parent post like the id, owner, score, tags, if it was a question/answer, if it was accepted If your copy was from a code block or from text content The Referer header Standard analytics properties like the date/time, approximated location, account metadata Here's our privacy policy on analytics: "Analytics information Stack Overflow uses data analytics to ensure site functionality and to optimize our Product and Service offerings to you. We use web browser and mobile analytics to allow us to understand Network and Apps functionality. In doing so, we record information including, for example how often you visit the Network, how often you contribute content, Network and Apps performance data, errors and debugging information, and the type of activity you engage in while on the Network or in your use of our Products and Services. We may on occasion share this information with third parties for research or product and services optimization."

podiki 5y ago
I appreciate the response and detail here, would have liked to see that in the original post.
quesera 5y ago
> Browsers fire a copy event when you copy, just like a click event fires when you press on a button. We just added analytics to it like we would any other feature on the site. This is a bit misleading. More accurate would be: Stack Overflow is able to configure our web pages to track certain of your activities on the page, including Copy and Click. We do that.
- jodrellblank 5y ago
  This is a bit misleading; "onclick" and "oncopy" are part of the HTML standard that "must be supported by all HTML elements [...] and that must be supported by all Document objects" [1] https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/webappapis.html#handler-onclick https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/webappapis.html#handl... [2] https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/webappapis.html#handler-oncopy https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/webappapis.html#handl...