4 ms·

The popups are annoying specifically because the rules lumped Google Analytics in with all the bad tracking that evil companies do. I want to know how many peo

The popups are annoying specifically because the rules lumped Google Analytics in with all the bad tracking that evil companies do. I want to know how many people visited my website. So does every website. It's something that websites need to know. We use Analytics to handle that for us, and because of this silly EU rule we're all technically breaking the law by not bothering every single visitor with annoying popups. Now there are in fact bad companies collecting data on individual people, correlating it between sites on the backend, and using it for nefarious purposes. Those are presumably the reason these stupid laws were passed in the first place, and it would be nice if they actually did need to show a button for you to click. But since the law says that everybody needs to show that button or lose the ability to know how many people saw their site, you never know whether you're getting the button for an evil site or just one of the millions of other sites you visit every day. I don't blame the evil companies even a little bit for this mess. It's the people who passed these terribly thought out laws. They'll keep passing more of them until we stop letting them.

weberer 4y ago
>I want to know how many people visited my website. So does every website You can do that easily without third-party tracking cookies.
- jefftk 4y ago
  Google Analytics doesn't use any third-party cookies; it uses first-party cookies only. [EDIT: this is too broad; see comments below] While the JS is loaded from a third-party origin, its notion of identity is entirely per-site. (Disclosure: I used to work on ads at Google)
  - btdmaster 4y ago
    It seems certain features are restricted to third-party cookies: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gtagjs/cookie-usage https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection.... In practice though, moving from third-party to first-party is simply a way to reduce the probability that the spyware gets blocked by the user agent.
    - jefftk 4y ago
      > certain features are restricted to third-party cookies You're talking about the https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gtagjs/cookie-usage#google_analytics_for_display_advertisers_-_cookie_usage https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection... section, right? That's only for sites that are already using third-party cookies for advertising, has to be specifically enabled, and doesn't seem very applicable to our "know how many people visited my website" discussion? But my comment above was too broad, and I've edited it to point here. > moving from third-party to first-party GA, back to the Urchin days, has always been built around first-party cookies though.
      - btdmaster 4y ago
        > https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gtagjs/cookie-usage#google_analytics_for_display_advertisers_-_cookie_usage https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection... Is that the same as https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2700409 https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2700409?
        jefftk 4y ago
        I think so? It's about linking advertising activity (keyed by third party advertising cookies) with analytics activity (keyed by first party analytics cookies)
- blooalien 4y ago
  Indeed. You get that and so much more useful information for free in your web-server logfiles. Any half-decent web server log analyzer tool will classify and graph all the useful data in those log files and present it to you in a nice shiny web page or report document of some sort. No cookies required.
  - azmodeus 4y ago
    You sound knowledge about using logfiles for analytics.Could you recommenda good stack to do this? I am assuming you need to do client side tracking for static pages though or you need to self host your static page.
user_7832 4y ago
> I don't blame the evil companies even a little bit for this mess. It's the people who passed these terribly thought out laws. They'll keep passing more of them until we stop letting them. Apart from being a... very interesting take, how do propose to do this?
vips7L 4y ago
...Can you not track how many people visit your site on the back end?
- jasonkester 4y ago
  Sure. Everybody can. But Google Analytics is a 30 second setup, whereas setting up a log analyzer (or even getting logging going in the first place) is a much bigger hassle. Some of my stuff is on wacky Cloud Function hosting that I wouldn't have the first idea of how to go about logging. Thus, nearly 100% of us just use Analytics. If they had an "evil" checkbox that I could uncheck to stop it doing whatever you're worried it will do, then I'd happily do so. Frankly, I'm not sure what GA could do that would bother anybody. All it does is tell me how many people saw what page and how long they stayed there. It certainly can't tell me anything about you personally.
  - ectopod 4y ago
    The problem isn't that you are invading your users' privacy. The problem is that you are allowing Google to.
  - Hizonner 4y ago
    On the other hand, if you do it yourself you'll see all the people who block all contact between their browsers and anything they can identify as an "analytics" site. I don't have time to screw around with figuring out what uses third-party cookies, what uses browser fingerprinting, what correlates information across sites, and/or what tracks what how in general, nor to check all the time to see if any of that has changed. I'm just gonna block all of it, because it's not worth the investment of my time to make such distinctions. The most I could get out of it would be slower page loads. Actually, I'm not even bothering to make THAT decision. My ad blocker blocks GA by default, and I'm not going to worry my pretty little head about unblocking anything unless something breaks.
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    That's a you problem. It doesn't entitle you to help google stalk your users.
avianlyric 4y ago
> But since the law says that everybody needs to show that button or lose the ability to know how many people saw their site, you never know whether you're getting the button for an evil site or just one of the millions of other sites you visit every day. Not sure where you got this from. But GDPR absolutely does not require this.
- jasonkester 4y ago
  I got it from the post that I replied to: I see so many websites – even club websites or private blogs – that have a cookie consent banner, but which wouldn't actually need one if they'd just turn off Google Analytics. I just don't get it. He asked why we don't turn off GA. I explained.
mkmk3 4y ago
For sure an interesting take. Is there really no way to bypass gdpr restrictions if the only functionality you need is unique visitors? It's been a while since I read the gdpr doc, so at what point does your activity become relevant to its restrictions?
- jefftk 4y ago
  To track unique visitors you need cookies or some other form of client-side storage. In Europe that means, per ePrivacy which predates the GDPR, you need cookie consent.
- tensor 4y ago
  I looked into this, and yes, there are some services that can do analytics without the cookie. E.g https://usefathom.com https://usefathom.com. However, the vast majority use cookies and the ones that don't often have a much higher cost. Ultimately, some of these alternatives that avoid the cookie law are simply finding tech work arounds. I have no doubt in my mind that the gov would find a way to require popups for those services if they were more prevalent.
- tinus_hn 4y ago
  You could just set a cookie that is a binary ‘I have already seen you’ value, gdpr only cares if you create identifiers.
Schroedingersat 4y ago
> The popups are annoying specifically because the rules lumped Google Analytics in with all the bad tracking that evil companies do. That's because it is the most evil one of all. Just because you're only using it for one piece of info doesn't mean you aren't violating your users' privacy by handing over a complete record of every site they visit to a company that uses it exclusively for evil.

weberer 4y ago

>I want to know how many people visited my website. So does every website You can do that easily without third-party tracking cookies.

jefftk 4y ago
Google Analytics doesn't use any third-party cookies; it uses first-party cookies only. [EDIT: this is too broad; see comments below] While the JS is loaded from a third-party origin, its notion of identity is entirely per-site. (Disclosure: I used to work on ads at Google)
- btdmaster 4y ago
  It seems certain features are restricted to third-party cookies: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gtagjs/cookie-usage https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection.... In practice though, moving from third-party to first-party is simply a way to reduce the probability that the spyware gets blocked by the user agent.
  - jefftk 4y ago
    > certain features are restricted to third-party cookies You're talking about the https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gtagjs/cookie-usage#google_analytics_for_display_advertisers_-_cookie_usage https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection... section, right? That's only for sites that are already using third-party cookies for advertising, has to be specifically enabled, and doesn't seem very applicable to our "know how many people visited my website" discussion? But my comment above was too broad, and I've edited it to point here. > moving from third-party to first-party GA, back to the Urchin days, has always been built around first-party cookies though.
    - btdmaster 4y ago
      > https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gtagjs/cookie-usage#google_analytics_for_display_advertisers_-_cookie_usage https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection... Is that the same as https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2700409 https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2700409?
      - jefftk 4y ago
        I think so? It's about linking advertising activity (keyed by third party advertising cookies) with analytics activity (keyed by first party analytics cookies)
blooalien 4y ago
Indeed. You get that and so much more useful information for free in your web-server logfiles. Any half-decent web server log analyzer tool will classify and graph all the useful data in those log files and present it to you in a nice shiny web page or report document of some sort. No cookies required.
- azmodeus 4y ago
  You sound knowledge about using logfiles for analytics.Could you recommenda good stack to do this? I am assuming you need to do client side tracking for static pages though or you need to self host your static page.

user_7832 4y ago

> I don't blame the evil companies even a little bit for this mess. It's the people who passed these terribly thought out laws. They'll keep passing more of them until we stop letting them. Apart from being a... very interesting take, how do propose to do this?

vips7L 4y ago

...Can you not track how many people visit your site on the back end?

jasonkester 4y ago
Sure. Everybody can. But Google Analytics is a 30 second setup, whereas setting up a log analyzer (or even getting logging going in the first place) is a much bigger hassle. Some of my stuff is on wacky Cloud Function hosting that I wouldn't have the first idea of how to go about logging. Thus, nearly 100% of us just use Analytics. If they had an "evil" checkbox that I could uncheck to stop it doing whatever you're worried it will do, then I'd happily do so. Frankly, I'm not sure what GA could do that would bother anybody. All it does is tell me how many people saw what page and how long they stayed there. It certainly can't tell me anything about you personally.
- ectopod 4y ago
  The problem isn't that you are invading your users' privacy. The problem is that you are allowing Google to.
- Hizonner 4y ago
  On the other hand, if you do it yourself you'll see all the people who block all contact between their browsers and anything they can identify as an "analytics" site. I don't have time to screw around with figuring out what uses third-party cookies, what uses browser fingerprinting, what correlates information across sites, and/or what tracks what how in general, nor to check all the time to see if any of that has changed. I'm just gonna block all of it, because it's not worth the investment of my time to make such distinctions. The most I could get out of it would be slower page loads. Actually, I'm not even bothering to make THAT decision. My ad blocker blocks GA by default, and I'm not going to worry my pretty little head about unblocking anything unless something breaks.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  That's a you problem. It doesn't entitle you to help google stalk your users.

avianlyric 4y ago

> But since the law says that everybody needs to show that button or lose the ability to know how many people saw their site, you never know whether you're getting the button for an evil site or just one of the millions of other sites you visit every day. Not sure where you got this from. But GDPR absolutely does not require this.

jasonkester 4y ago
I got it from the post that I replied to: I see so many websites – even club websites or private blogs – that have a cookie consent banner, but which wouldn't actually need one if they'd just turn off Google Analytics. I just don't get it. He asked why we don't turn off GA. I explained.

mkmk3 4y ago

For sure an interesting take. Is there really no way to bypass gdpr restrictions if the only functionality you need is unique visitors? It's been a while since I read the gdpr doc, so at what point does your activity become relevant to its restrictions?

jefftk 4y ago
To track unique visitors you need cookies or some other form of client-side storage. In Europe that means, per ePrivacy which predates the GDPR, you need cookie consent.
tensor 4y ago
I looked into this, and yes, there are some services that can do analytics without the cookie. E.g https://usefathom.com https://usefathom.com. However, the vast majority use cookies and the ones that don't often have a much higher cost. Ultimately, some of these alternatives that avoid the cookie law are simply finding tech work arounds. I have no doubt in my mind that the gov would find a way to require popups for those services if they were more prevalent.
tinus_hn 4y ago
You could just set a cookie that is a binary ‘I have already seen you’ value, gdpr only cares if you create identifiers.

Schroedingersat 4y ago

> The popups are annoying specifically because the rules lumped Google Analytics in with all the bad tracking that evil companies do. That's because it is the most evil one of all. Just because you're only using it for one piece of info doesn't mean you aren't violating your users' privacy by handing over a complete record of every site they visit to a company that uses it exclusively for evil.