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I don’t get it. Thought tracking pixels were just for unsophisticated websites and those who wanted to track people across different sites. USPS has an authen

I don’t get it. Thought tracking pixels were just for unsophisticated websites and those who wanted to track people across different sites. USPS has an authenticated page where they know their customers. Why wouldn’t they just analyze THEIR OWN logs instead of relying on third-party advertising companies? Was this really an accident?

wlonkly 2y ago
Pixels aren't pixels, oddly enough, it's marketing jargon for cross-site tracking, which way back when was accomplished by pixels. So even relatively sophisticated analytics platforms are still "pixels". I don't like it either. The USPS wants to know which of their ad campaigns is successful, and want to be able to target advertising, so they embed their advertising platforms' Javascript in their site. That part seems reasonable for a government agency that's required to self-fund. The problem is either that the tracking was on pages that shouldn't have had it, or that it wasn't restricted in what it could send to the analytics platforms.