4 ms·

As much I agree with respecting folks wishes to not be tracked, most of these cases are not about "tracking". It's usually website hosts just wanting to know h

As much I agree with respecting folks wishes to not be tracked, most of these cases are not about "tracking". It's usually website hosts just wanting to know how many folks are passing through. If a visitor doesn't even want to contribute to incrementing a private visit counter by +1, then maybe don't bother visiting.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
gizmo 3y ago
If it was just about a simple count the host could just `wc -l access.log`. Clearly website hosts are not satisfied with that, and so they ignore DO_NOT_TRACK and disrespectfully try to circumvent privacy extensions.
- jakelazaroff 3y ago
  Is there a meaningful difference between recording "this IP address made a request on this date" and "this IP address made a request on this date after hovering their cursor over the page body"? How is your suggestion more acceptable than what the blog describes?
  - gizmo 3y ago
    Going out of your way to specifically track people who indicate they don't want to be tracked is worse.
    - vivekd 3y ago
      Google cloud and AWS VPS and many hosting services collect and provide this info by default. Chances are most websites do this including this one you are using now. HN does up bans meaning they must access visitor IP. Why aren't people starting their protest against the website they're currently using instead of at OP.
      - gizmo 3y ago
        We all know that tracking is ubiquitous on the web. This blogpost however discusses technology that specifically helps with tracking people who don't want to be tracked. I responded that an alternative approach is to just not. That's not hypocritical.
        joshmanders 3y ago
        Again, you don't answer the question of what's the difference between a image pixel or javascript logging that you visited the site vs nginx/apache logging you visited the site? You're upset that OP used an image or javascript instead of grepping `access.log` makes absolute no sense. The same data is shown there.
        gizmo 3y ago
        It's rude to tell people how they feel and it's rude to assert a post makes "absolutely no sense" while at the same time demanding a response. One difference is intent. When you build an analytics system you have an obligation to let people opt out. Access logs serve many legitimate purposes, and yes, they can also be used to track people, but that is not why access logs exist. This difference is also reflected in law. Using access logs for security purposes is always allowed but using that same data for marketing purposes may require an opt-in or disclosure.
    - jakelazaroff 3y ago
      My point is that your `wc -l access.log` solution will also track people who send the Do Not Track header unless you specifically prevent it from doing so. In fact, you could implement the exact same system described in the blog post by replacing the Python code run on every request with an aggregation of the access log. So what is the pragmatic difference between the two?
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - gizmo 3y ago
        Even the GDPR makes this distinction. Access logs (with IP addresses) are fine if you use them for technical purposes (monitor for 404, 500 errors) but if you use access logs for marketing purposes you need users to opt-in, because IP addresses are considered PII by law. And if you don't log IPs then you can't track uniques. Tracking and logging are not the same thing.
        jakelazaroff 3y ago
        May I remind you that your own suggested solution was using access logs for marketing purposes!
- arp242 3y ago
  > If it was just about a simple count the host could just `wc -l access.log` That doesn't really work because huge amount of traffic is from 1) bots, 2) prefetches and other things that shouldn't be counted, 3) the same person loading the page 5 times, visiting every page on the site, etc. In short, these numbers will be wildly wrong (and in my experience "how wrong" can also differ quite a bit per site and over time, depending on factors that are not very obvious). What people want is a simple break-down of useful things like which entry pages are used, where people came from (as in: "did my post get on the frontpage of HN?") I don't see how anyone's privacy or anything is violated with that. You can object to that of course. You can also object to people wearing a red shirt or a baseball cap. At some point objections become unreasonable.
- reustle 3y ago
  > a simple count the host could just `wc -l access.log` Tons of very simple hosts, like Github Pages, don't give access to detailed info like that (and that's totally fine).

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

gizmo 3y ago

If it was just about a simple count the host could just `wc -l access.log`. Clearly website hosts are not satisfied with that, and so they ignore DO_NOT_TRACK and disrespectfully try to circumvent privacy extensions.

jakelazaroff 3y ago
Is there a meaningful difference between recording "this IP address made a request on this date" and "this IP address made a request on this date after hovering their cursor over the page body"? How is your suggestion more acceptable than what the blog describes?
- gizmo 3y ago
  Going out of your way to specifically track people who indicate they don't want to be tracked is worse.
  - vivekd 3y ago
    Google cloud and AWS VPS and many hosting services collect and provide this info by default. Chances are most websites do this including this one you are using now. HN does up bans meaning they must access visitor IP. Why aren't people starting their protest against the website they're currently using instead of at OP.
    - gizmo 3y ago
      We all know that tracking is ubiquitous on the web. This blogpost however discusses technology that specifically helps with tracking people who don't want to be tracked. I responded that an alternative approach is to just not. That's not hypocritical.
      - joshmanders 3y ago
        Again, you don't answer the question of what's the difference between a image pixel or javascript logging that you visited the site vs nginx/apache logging you visited the site? You're upset that OP used an image or javascript instead of grepping `access.log` makes absolute no sense. The same data is shown there.
        gizmo 3y ago
        It's rude to tell people how they feel and it's rude to assert a post makes "absolutely no sense" while at the same time demanding a response. One difference is intent. When you build an analytics system you have an obligation to let people opt out. Access logs serve many legitimate purposes, and yes, they can also be used to track people, but that is not why access logs exist. This difference is also reflected in law. Using access logs for security purposes is always allowed but using that same data for marketing purposes may require an opt-in or disclosure.
  - jakelazaroff 3y ago
    My point is that your `wc -l access.log` solution will also track people who send the Do Not Track header unless you specifically prevent it from doing so. In fact, you could implement the exact same system described in the blog post by replacing the Python code run on every request with an aggregation of the access log. So what is the pragmatic difference between the two?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - gizmo 3y ago
      Even the GDPR makes this distinction. Access logs (with IP addresses) are fine if you use them for technical purposes (monitor for 404, 500 errors) but if you use access logs for marketing purposes you need users to opt-in, because IP addresses are considered PII by law. And if you don't log IPs then you can't track uniques. Tracking and logging are not the same thing.
      - jakelazaroff 3y ago
        May I remind you that your own suggested solution was using access logs for marketing purposes!
arp242 3y ago
> If it was just about a simple count the host could just `wc -l access.log` That doesn't really work because huge amount of traffic is from 1) bots, 2) prefetches and other things that shouldn't be counted, 3) the same person loading the page 5 times, visiting every page on the site, etc. In short, these numbers will be wildly wrong (and in my experience "how wrong" can also differ quite a bit per site and over time, depending on factors that are not very obvious). What people want is a simple break-down of useful things like which entry pages are used, where people came from (as in: "did my post get on the frontpage of HN?") I don't see how anyone's privacy or anything is violated with that. You can object to that of course. You can also object to people wearing a red shirt or a baseball cap. At some point objections become unreasonable.
reustle 3y ago
> a simple count the host could just `wc -l access.log` Tons of very simple hosts, like Github Pages, don't give access to detailed info like that (and that's totally fine).