5 ms·

This is actually super common functionality with a large number of analytics providers. We talked to a company a number of years ago trying to sell us this too

by donatj 4y ago

This is actually super common functionality with a large number of analytics providers. We talked to a company a number of years ago trying to sell us this tool that would let you play back a video of what a user did right up to getting an error on your website. Useful, but creepy.

Alupis 4y ago
There's many services that provide this these days, including HotJar (paid) and Microsoft Clarity (free). Being able to see users actually use your site, combined with heatmaps and more really lets your team focus on usability issues, or help direct attention to more important features. Things like, do users struggle to find the shopping cart button? Are they confused about how to create an account? Is it frustrating to make changes to something, etc. Engineers are really bad at understanding usability issues unless they see it for themselves. However, it does tend to be something you review/monitor sporadically, not every day. You have to have enough samples to see if changes have had a significant impact or not. The ones we've used have all had the ability to censor what the tool believes to be sensitive information, such as passwords, credit card numbers, etc. In our experience, these tools overzealously censor on-page text out of an abundance of caution - which is just fine. Rarely are you interested in reading the text on screen, rather, you're watching how the user interacts with the page. It's kind of a ridiculous notion that a site operator cannot monitor how users use the site... this is not wiretapping and I assume (hope) it gets thrown out.
- S201 4y ago
  > It's kind of a ridiculous notion that a site operator cannot monitor how users use the site... this is not wiretapping and I assume (hope) it gets thrown out. Putting aside how many other ways there are to determine how users use a website without needing to resort to this level of intrusion, the issue is that almost always the user isn't aware this level of monitoring of their actions is happening. Sure, it may be buried deep in some privacy policy or terms and conditions no one ever reads, but that's not exactly what I'd call informed consent. This is where regulation to at least require websites notify their uses that there's literally a recording being taken of their screen interacting with the website would be helpful.
  - Alupis 4y ago
    I don't think it matters at all. There is no expectation of privacy when browsing a website (from the website operator). We can see everything you do... obviously. Also, it's not a recording of their screen that is being taken, but rather it's mouse coordinates and keystrokes which then re-assemble a replay of the actions. Just like a video game replay.
    - S201 4y ago
      > I don't think it matters at all. There is no expectation of privacy when browsing a website (from the website operator). We can see everything you do... obviously. Server logs will of course tell the operator what buttons are being clicked on and which pages are being requested. But once those pages are on my computer, I disagree, I do have an expectation of privacy around my mouse movements and keystrokes on my own computer. If I choose to send those to some third party server so be it, but having those collected without consent is a problem. As engineers we may assume this is being done regardless and accept it as a reality of the web, but I'd imagine the average person would be quite surprised to see what is a recording of their browser window reconstructed without being informed that was happening. They may rightful have that expectation of privacy here, which is being broken by these tools. > Also, it's not a recording of their screen that is being taken, but rather it's mouse coordinates and keystrokes which then re-assemble a replay of the actions. Just like a video game replay. It doesn't matter what method is taken to generate a video if the end result is the same as if you were recording my actual browser window.
      - Alupis 4y ago
        How would this be any different if I were to design my site to use a websocket and stream mouse events and keystrokes to figure out if you are clicking a button, versus using a javascript event handler or something? In fact, a lot of your browser games operate this way (using coordinates). There is no one single way to design a website. The very same non-technical folks that you allege are misled here also have no clue how buttons work on a site either... it's all magic to those folks. Are we not supposed to do any logging now? How is it any different to only log when a user presses a button? Your TV tracks what shows you watch, what buttons you press, how often you skip commercials, etc. Your smart fridge tracks how often you use the ice feature, your car tracks how often you drive aggressively, etc. No one is alleging these devices are "wiretapping"...
- np- 4y ago
  How is it ridiculous? This seems like an argument more like because you can do it, you should do it. What if car manufacturers had similar ideas to "focus on usability issues" and recorded every driver as they're driving their car. You could even use the same argument, if you're out in public there's no expectation of privacy, and you don't own the tech in the car, you just license it. But somehow we would all consider that to be crossing a red line and to be super creepy.
- faller_slive 4y ago
  It is equivalent to following someone around a store and writing down how long they look at each item on the shelves, what they pick up, what they put back, etc.
  - kaishiro 4y ago
    There are (multiple) companies in the US who already do this via in-store cameras and secret shopper monitoring. I know this because I've worked with them.
- theropost 4y ago
  Such types of analytics tools are useful for certain purposes, however I do think we need some sort of regulation, or monitoring to decide where the line is, and how far any company should be able to go with this type of thing. It's a bit disconcerting because without such technical regulation, where does the line get drawn? Will be the norm transition to discreetly recording audio/video as well?
- alkonaut 4y ago
  I’m probably happy to provide that information but I want to know when that happens, and not by fine print in “terms” somewhere. My browser should render a page, then if I write an angry review and edit it to a less angry one before I submit, I expect my angry review to be logged nowhere at all.
  - amerkhalid 4y ago
    This reminds me of days of unstable internet connections & form submissions not working randomly. In those days, I would type my comment in Notepad first and then copy, paste, and submit. Perhaps, it is time to restart that practice.
- mort96 4y ago
  When a user goes to your website, the user is trusting you to run you run your software on their hardware. You should respect that.
S201 4y ago
A few years ago I was at a startup that integration one of these video playback services (Fullstory) into their product. At the time the PM team was all jazzed up about the idea and engineers were rushing to get it implemented. I was the only person to bring up potential privacy concerns which were immediately dismissed under the excuse that the PMs absolutely needed this level of functionality to view individual user's full sessions on the website. Anyway, Ublock blocks Fullstory's JS from running by default so at the very least your ad-blocker is potentially saving you from this level of intrusion.
- mmastrac 4y ago
  I don't think this is entirely accurate. I was at FullStory, as a director of development and founding engineer on the mobile analytics, and we were focused on our privacy-by-default initiative that blocks out user PII while still giving you PM-level information. The founders of the company were invested in privacy and PBD, and we put a lot of effort into balancing data with privacy. One of the founders even spent a great deal of time on the initial implementation. This work started years ago and I can say that everyone was interested in privacy, from recording/playback engineers to execs.
  - S201 4y ago
    I didn't work on the integration directly at the time so it's certainly possible some of my details are incorrect. That said, from what I remember of the demos that were given there was the ability to set regions of pages which contained PII that were not collected but this was entirely up to us to configure. Otherwise, it was possible to watch an individual user's full session on the website. This was years ago too so maybe it has changed since, but my issue is with the whole premise of products like Fullstory that make it possible to essentially watch your user's over their shoulder without being given proper notification that level of monitoring is occurring.
    - mmastrac 4y ago
      The potential is there for sure, but the company believed in giving customers the tools to ensure that PII was not recorded, including go as far as giving internal engineers tools required to scrub data permanently that was accidentally recorded. I no longer work at FullStory, but I believe very strongly that the culture of privacy still exists. Senior individuals at FS, myself obviously included, felt very strongly that we wanted to avoid any of the creepiness factor, and it was important to us that we felt comfortable with the technology. Discussions on privacy were paramount in all designs.
legitster 4y ago
I mean, yeah, isn't this normal behavior for every major video game as well?

by donatj 4y ago

Alupis 4y ago

There's many services that provide this these days, including HotJar (paid) and Microsoft Clarity (free). Being able to see users actually use your site, combined with heatmaps and more really lets your team focus on usability issues, or help direct attention to more important features. Things like, do users struggle to find the shopping cart button? Are they confused about how to create an account? Is it frustrating to make changes to something, etc. Engineers are really bad at understanding usability issues unless they see it for themselves. However, it does tend to be something you review/monitor sporadically, not every day. You have to have enough samples to see if changes have had a significant impact or not. The ones we've used have all had the ability to censor what the tool believes to be sensitive information, such as passwords, credit card numbers, etc. In our experience, these tools overzealously censor on-page text out of an abundance of caution - which is just fine. Rarely are you interested in reading the text on screen, rather, you're watching how the user interacts with the page. It's kind of a ridiculous notion that a site operator cannot monitor how users use the site... this is not wiretapping and I assume (hope) it gets thrown out.

S201 4y ago
> It's kind of a ridiculous notion that a site operator cannot monitor how users use the site... this is not wiretapping and I assume (hope) it gets thrown out. Putting aside how many other ways there are to determine how users use a website without needing to resort to this level of intrusion, the issue is that almost always the user isn't aware this level of monitoring of their actions is happening. Sure, it may be buried deep in some privacy policy or terms and conditions no one ever reads, but that's not exactly what I'd call informed consent. This is where regulation to at least require websites notify their uses that there's literally a recording being taken of their screen interacting with the website would be helpful.
- Alupis 4y ago
  I don't think it matters at all. There is no expectation of privacy when browsing a website (from the website operator). We can see everything you do... obviously. Also, it's not a recording of their screen that is being taken, but rather it's mouse coordinates and keystrokes which then re-assemble a replay of the actions. Just like a video game replay.
  - S201 4y ago
    > I don't think it matters at all. There is no expectation of privacy when browsing a website (from the website operator). We can see everything you do... obviously. Server logs will of course tell the operator what buttons are being clicked on and which pages are being requested. But once those pages are on my computer, I disagree, I do have an expectation of privacy around my mouse movements and keystrokes on my own computer. If I choose to send those to some third party server so be it, but having those collected without consent is a problem. As engineers we may assume this is being done regardless and accept it as a reality of the web, but I'd imagine the average person would be quite surprised to see what is a recording of their browser window reconstructed without being informed that was happening. They may rightful have that expectation of privacy here, which is being broken by these tools. > Also, it's not a recording of their screen that is being taken, but rather it's mouse coordinates and keystrokes which then re-assemble a replay of the actions. Just like a video game replay. It doesn't matter what method is taken to generate a video if the end result is the same as if you were recording my actual browser window.
    - Alupis 4y ago
      How would this be any different if I were to design my site to use a websocket and stream mouse events and keystrokes to figure out if you are clicking a button, versus using a javascript event handler or something? In fact, a lot of your browser games operate this way (using coordinates). There is no one single way to design a website. The very same non-technical folks that you allege are misled here also have no clue how buttons work on a site either... it's all magic to those folks. Are we not supposed to do any logging now? How is it any different to only log when a user presses a button? Your TV tracks what shows you watch, what buttons you press, how often you skip commercials, etc. Your smart fridge tracks how often you use the ice feature, your car tracks how often you drive aggressively, etc. No one is alleging these devices are "wiretapping"...
np- 4y ago
How is it ridiculous? This seems like an argument more like because you can do it, you should do it. What if car manufacturers had similar ideas to "focus on usability issues" and recorded every driver as they're driving their car. You could even use the same argument, if you're out in public there's no expectation of privacy, and you don't own the tech in the car, you just license it. But somehow we would all consider that to be crossing a red line and to be super creepy.
faller_slive 4y ago
It is equivalent to following someone around a store and writing down how long they look at each item on the shelves, what they pick up, what they put back, etc.
- kaishiro 4y ago
  There are (multiple) companies in the US who already do this via in-store cameras and secret shopper monitoring. I know this because I've worked with them.
theropost 4y ago
Such types of analytics tools are useful for certain purposes, however I do think we need some sort of regulation, or monitoring to decide where the line is, and how far any company should be able to go with this type of thing. It's a bit disconcerting because without such technical regulation, where does the line get drawn? Will be the norm transition to discreetly recording audio/video as well?
alkonaut 4y ago
I’m probably happy to provide that information but I want to know when that happens, and not by fine print in “terms” somewhere. My browser should render a page, then if I write an angry review and edit it to a less angry one before I submit, I expect my angry review to be logged nowhere at all.
- amerkhalid 4y ago
  This reminds me of days of unstable internet connections & form submissions not working randomly. In those days, I would type my comment in Notepad first and then copy, paste, and submit. Perhaps, it is time to restart that practice.
mort96 4y ago
When a user goes to your website, the user is trusting you to run you run your software on their hardware. You should respect that.

S201 4y ago

A few years ago I was at a startup that integration one of these video playback services (Fullstory) into their product. At the time the PM team was all jazzed up about the idea and engineers were rushing to get it implemented. I was the only person to bring up potential privacy concerns which were immediately dismissed under the excuse that the PMs absolutely needed this level of functionality to view individual user's full sessions on the website. Anyway, Ublock blocks Fullstory's JS from running by default so at the very least your ad-blocker is potentially saving you from this level of intrusion.

mmastrac 4y ago
I don't think this is entirely accurate. I was at FullStory, as a director of development and founding engineer on the mobile analytics, and we were focused on our privacy-by-default initiative that blocks out user PII while still giving you PM-level information. The founders of the company were invested in privacy and PBD, and we put a lot of effort into balancing data with privacy. One of the founders even spent a great deal of time on the initial implementation. This work started years ago and I can say that everyone was interested in privacy, from recording/playback engineers to execs.
- S201 4y ago
  I didn't work on the integration directly at the time so it's certainly possible some of my details are incorrect. That said, from what I remember of the demos that were given there was the ability to set regions of pages which contained PII that were not collected but this was entirely up to us to configure. Otherwise, it was possible to watch an individual user's full session on the website. This was years ago too so maybe it has changed since, but my issue is with the whole premise of products like Fullstory that make it possible to essentially watch your user's over their shoulder without being given proper notification that level of monitoring is occurring.
  - mmastrac 4y ago
    The potential is there for sure, but the company believed in giving customers the tools to ensure that PII was not recorded, including go as far as giving internal engineers tools required to scrub data permanently that was accidentally recorded. I no longer work at FullStory, but I believe very strongly that the culture of privacy still exists. Senior individuals at FS, myself obviously included, felt very strongly that we wanted to avoid any of the creepiness factor, and it was important to us that we felt comfortable with the technology. Discussions on privacy were paramount in all designs.

legitster 4y ago

I mean, yeah, isn't this normal behavior for every major video game as well?