3 ms·

In case someone else is wondering why this company stores petabytes of data, this is why: > Heap is the only tool that automatically captures all user interact

In case someone else is wondering why this company stores petabytes of data, this is why: > Heap is the only tool that automatically captures all user interactions on your site, from the moment of installation forward. A single snippet grabs every click, swipe, tap, pageview, and fill — forever. Revolting... at least my content blocker had their collection script already blocked.

tgtweak 5y ago
I mean, it's first party data (stored on behalf of the site you're visiting) accessible to that first party vs data that is going to Google Analytics or Facebook (3rd party) and which is accessible by all of Google or Facebook (actually concerning). Not trying to make a case for large scale data collection without purpose - but if clickstreams are going somewhere I would rather it no be to a company selling me ads.
- lrem 5y ago
  On the other hand, Google has pretty strict data retention rules. For Analytics: > The maximum amount of time that Analytics will retain Google-signals data is 26 months, regardless of your settings. First party can be longer, but is usually shorter than this. Disclosure: I'm a Googler. Logs of my product are retained for 14 months and until recently it was 1 month, but it turned out we need to debug cases older than that.
- almostdigital 5y ago
  You'd rather it be a company that sells your data to as many third parties as possible? Because that's what they all do. Google and Facebook are arguably better because they at least are somewhat incentivized to keep your data to themselves. Even though that's like arguing about which STD is better instead of using condoms.
  - anaganisk 5y ago
    Didn’t Cambridge Analytica happen exactly due to this? Data “leak” to third parties?
  - tgtweak 5y ago
    Read the terms the data does not get shared with anyone - very clearly stated there. Does aws share your data with 3rd parties? Let's do some research before crying foul. Google doesn't have to share your data with outside people directly, they are more than enough of a customer for that data themselves.
    - almostdigital 5y ago
      > Read the terms the data does not get shared with anyone - very clearly stated there. I did read the terms and it was anything but clear on that, it only says that data generated is owned by the customer but also allows them to create "anonymized" versions of the data that they do own. Even if the terms didn't give them a free pass to share the data (and that they don't sell it anyway like many do) that data is only a company policy change from being sold... The probability of that happening quickly approaches 1 with data brokers sitting on their doorstep with bags of money. > Does aws share your data with 3rd parties? Assuming that you're talking about the data stored on rented servers - and not their customer and usage data which they very likely do share with third parties - they have very obvious incentives to keep that data readable only by the customer. Not that I would be all that surprised to learn that some cloud provider had been mining their customers disk storage for data... > Google doesn't have to share your data with outside people directly, they are more than enough of a customer for that data themselves That's what I meant with that they are somewhat incentivized to keep it to themselves. That's marginally less disgusting than having it being sold in bulk to companies that specialize in aggregating, de-anonymizing and re-selling data.
      - tgtweak 5y ago
        The terms and data policy explicitly state that the data is only accessible by the first party and only aggregated (not just anonymous) data can be used for internal purposes (again not to a 3rd party). My original point was is better to have a party that is being payed to store and keep private your data rather than one who makes their money off of accessing it and sharing knowledge of it with third parties. Fundamentally it is guaranteed that sharing your data with a third party for free is gives you less recourse/expectation of privacy than a company that is getting paid to do so (like AWS S3 in my example).
dotancohen 5y ago
> Revolting... at least my content blocker had their collection script already blocked. Inspired to add a content blocker by this, thank you. Which do you use?
- almostdigital 5y ago
  I'm using Wipr + StopTheMadness in Safari, for other browsers uBlock Origin is good
  - dotancohen 5y ago
    Thanks.

tgtweak 5y ago

I mean, it's first party data (stored on behalf of the site you're visiting) accessible to that first party vs data that is going to Google Analytics or Facebook (3rd party) and which is accessible by all of Google or Facebook (actually concerning). Not trying to make a case for large scale data collection without purpose - but if clickstreams are going somewhere I would rather it no be to a company selling me ads.

lrem 5y ago
On the other hand, Google has pretty strict data retention rules. For Analytics: > The maximum amount of time that Analytics will retain Google-signals data is 26 months, regardless of your settings. First party can be longer, but is usually shorter than this. Disclosure: I'm a Googler. Logs of my product are retained for 14 months and until recently it was 1 month, but it turned out we need to debug cases older than that.
almostdigital 5y ago
You'd rather it be a company that sells your data to as many third parties as possible? Because that's what they all do. Google and Facebook are arguably better because they at least are somewhat incentivized to keep your data to themselves. Even though that's like arguing about which STD is better instead of using condoms.
- anaganisk 5y ago
  Didn’t Cambridge Analytica happen exactly due to this? Data “leak” to third parties?
- tgtweak 5y ago
  Read the terms the data does not get shared with anyone - very clearly stated there. Does aws share your data with 3rd parties? Let's do some research before crying foul. Google doesn't have to share your data with outside people directly, they are more than enough of a customer for that data themselves.
  - almostdigital 5y ago
    > Read the terms the data does not get shared with anyone - very clearly stated there. I did read the terms and it was anything but clear on that, it only says that data generated is owned by the customer but also allows them to create "anonymized" versions of the data that they do own. Even if the terms didn't give them a free pass to share the data (and that they don't sell it anyway like many do) that data is only a company policy change from being sold... The probability of that happening quickly approaches 1 with data brokers sitting on their doorstep with bags of money. > Does aws share your data with 3rd parties? Assuming that you're talking about the data stored on rented servers - and not their customer and usage data which they very likely do share with third parties - they have very obvious incentives to keep that data readable only by the customer. Not that I would be all that surprised to learn that some cloud provider had been mining their customers disk storage for data... > Google doesn't have to share your data with outside people directly, they are more than enough of a customer for that data themselves That's what I meant with that they are somewhat incentivized to keep it to themselves. That's marginally less disgusting than having it being sold in bulk to companies that specialize in aggregating, de-anonymizing and re-selling data.
    - tgtweak 5y ago
      The terms and data policy explicitly state that the data is only accessible by the first party and only aggregated (not just anonymous) data can be used for internal purposes (again not to a 3rd party). My original point was is better to have a party that is being payed to store and keep private your data rather than one who makes their money off of accessing it and sharing knowledge of it with third parties. Fundamentally it is guaranteed that sharing your data with a third party for free is gives you less recourse/expectation of privacy than a company that is getting paid to do so (like AWS S3 in my example).

dotancohen 5y ago

> Revolting... at least my content blocker had their collection script already blocked. Inspired to add a content blocker by this, thank you. Which do you use?

almostdigital 5y ago
I'm using Wipr + StopTheMadness in Safari, for other browsers uBlock Origin is good
- dotancohen 5y ago
  Thanks.