4 ms·

Huh, am I? Has anyone offended by this "transgression" of privacy by Mozilla thought this through to its logical conclusion? Let's see. 1. Mozilla is one of th

by vdaniuk 11y ago

Huh, am I? Has anyone offended by this "transgression" of privacy by Mozilla thought this through to its logical conclusion? Let's see. 1. Mozilla is one of the good, independent orgs that don't have profit as their main goal. They do fight for the interests of the community at large. 2. If they remove third-party analytics from their web properties, Mozilla instantly loses valuable actionable insights that significantly increase their efficiency as an organization. Creating a viable alternative to Google Analytics is practically impossible for Mozilla due to lack of resources. 3. If Mozilla loses operational efficiency, Google/Microsoft becomes more powerful and are able to obtain more users for Chrome/IE. They use all analytics they need. Less users for Mozilla means less income from search engine deals and less influence. 4. No meaningful privacy increase for users is achieved, Google Analytics is now installed on (billions - 1) websites. So. You want a non-profit with proven track record of shipping great software and protecting the interests of individuals to take a significant hit in the name of hard-line ideological principle that won't really benefit the users. I guess I am missing the point.

mattmanser 11y ago
I mean this is an honest way, but what actionable insights? Mozilla aren't selling anything on that page. They won't be making key engineering decisions off of the page. Could you detail the gains that they could make that makes the world a better place? That justify any sort of tracking over '300, 000 people viewed this page today' that you can get from your own logs? There is some data that might be occasionally useful, like screen sizes, but only occasionally.
- whichdan 11y ago
  What about funnel analysis?
- giovannibajo1 11y ago
  I would say that browser usage, demography (country distribution etc.) and navigation paths (bounce rate, funnels, etc.) within the site are all important data points to optimize a non-profit website. I'm not sure anybody can make a point for GA to be life changing for that site, but the opposite is also true (the saving in privacy from visitors is not going to have a game-changing effect). I also think that a pragmatic organization should focus on a few very important battles that it thinks it can win, rather than trying to fight everything in the name of ideology.
  - mattmanser 11y ago
    Browser usage is in the user agent string. Country is in the IP address. You don't need a third party analytics system for them. And none of this information will ever be used it is just gathered and sent to a third party.
- Osmose 11y ago
  Off the top of my head, based off things we normally look for in our analytics: - See how people get to the privacy page from where they enter the site. Useful to see if some categories are getting more traffic than others, so that we can re-balance if, for example, we think that Privacy is not getting the attention we want it to. - See how long people are staying on this page. What if the writing or infographic don't make sense to users? We can try and improve them so that users come away with a better understanding of privacy. - How are users interacting with those circles? If they're not hovering over any of the circles, maybe we should make it auto-switch between them to draw the user's eye over. Or maybe if they're only hovering over the first three, we should make those first three the most important aspects of privacy to make sure they're seen. The goal of Shape of the Web is (in my eyes) to educate users about the issues that the open internet faces today, and to help give them a framework for thinking about what the web is (it's hard to think about a thing if you don't know how it's "shaped"). All of these metrics help us improve the page's ability to convey information so we can better educate users.
  - pdkl95 11y ago
    > - See how people get to the privacy page from where they enter the site. You don't need a 3rd party to learn the order of pages you served to any given client. That one is so simple you only need 'grep' and the server log. (aggregation into whatever statistics you want to learn is a trivial exercise left for the reader) > - See how long people are staying on this page. The entire point is that you do not have a right to that information, other than what you can infer from the client later loading another page. Applying technical methods to gain access to private information like this simply makes you the the spy invading people's privacy. Worse, as most people do not understand these technical details, you are a eavesdropper who is preying on ignorance. > so that users come away with a better understanding of privacy. ...while you simultaneously violate the same user's privacy. Do you seriously not understand that you're making the "We had to destroy the village in order to save it" style of ends-justify-the means argument that ignores how you've started to act like that which you are supposedly fighting against. > hovering over Again, the entire point is that you don't get to know that information. That is a perfect example of the type of data the privacy-focused people are trying to protect. We really don't give a damn if that information is useful; if you're recording anything beyond the HTTP requests you receive (the explicit request from the client), then you are the spy and therefore the enemy. If you want to understand how effective your pages are, find another way to deduce that information. This is why traditional businesses pay people to participate in focus groups, to name one example.
- vdaniuk 11y ago
  Sure, I'd love to elaborate on benefits for Mozilla and others that arise from use of GA. The list won't be exhaustive but will provide enough examples. 1. Mozilla launches a new translation initiative for Firefox that is announced on the index page and links to the landing page for the initiative. Google Analytics(GA) allows them to understand the clickthrough rate of the announcement and conversion rate of visitors joining the initiative for all combinations of channels/geographies/mediums and optimizing them. Benefit: Firefox users get better localization as more people join. 2. Mozilla Development Network(MDN, good) competes with W3Schools(bad) for top results in search engines for JS/HTML/CSS related queries. GA has great tools for analysis for search engine traffic and integration with Google Webmaster Tools(GWT) that provides data for MDN team to do better SEO. Benefit: MDN team increases traffic to their high-quality educational information and attracts attention of more users, strengthening Mozilla and Firefox brand. 3. Mozilla wants to teach web technologies to people and promote collaborations with Webmaker. Webmaker team can use Google Analytics custom events tool to collect and monitor specific users actions in the product. That provides data for optimization of onboarding experience for new users. For example, after upgrading UX/UI 50% more users will remix and publish a Webmake. Benefit: more users successfully learn web technologies and create web content for fun/profit. 4. Mozilla gets a significant amount of revenue from search engine deals. Every install of a browser directly translates in small, but measurable increase of funding for Mozilla's projects. Google Analytics content experiments is a great tool for A/B and multivariate testing for increasing conversions on their Firefox download pages. Benefit: Increase in browser installs, therefore increase in revenue, therefore increase of cool projects done by Mozilla. Really, this is just a tiny number of possible use cases of Google Analytics by Mozilla. The efficiency boost by using an advanced web analytics software is immense and there is no open source alternative. It's not Kerbal Space Program advanced level of analytics-foo, this is basic day-to-day stuff for growth hackers/startup founders/marketers/bloggers.
  - mattmanser 11y ago
    How pathetically weak are all of them? And certainly doesn't need constantly running analytics or even only opt-in.
    - 11y ago
Osmose 11y ago
As a Mozilla Web Developer who has worked on several of our websites, including this one, this is exactly the thought process behind this kind of choice. It's the same thought process behind 90% of the things we do that people hate Mozilla for. People think Mozilla is pure and 100% ideal by whatever standards that they make up themselves, but the truth is that Mozilla is _pragmatic_. Sometimes we do things that aren't great because to do so otherwise would hurt the greater mission. For example, we don't exist to create 100% open source software 100% of the time. Instead, we _strongly_ believe what we say in our manifesto: "Free and open source software promotes the development of the Internet as a public resource." Sometimes, mostly when we're working with a partner (like a phone company) who can offer us significant leverage, we write some code that isn't immediately made public, and _that's okay_. Our end goal isn't to put more open source software in the world, it's to further the internet as a global public resource. (Mozilla is also so diverse and disjointed that sweeping generalizations like the ones I just made are completely inaccurate. We make mistakes and we make bad choices. Mozilla is more like several different companies that happen to share the same name.)
- vdaniuk 11y ago
  I trust Mozilla and fully support this pragmatic approach. The only alternative is total domination of for-profit megacorps who have diminishingly small concern for public benefit. Thank you for your contribution to the free/open web.
bigbugbag 11y ago
1. independent as in funded almost entirely by google and ads (ads implying a form of surveillance hence privacy issues). 2. Well that's a bold statement to make to say that web analytics have to be third party to provide valuable actionable insights. 3. I don't care about operational efficiency, I care about my privacy. If mozilla sacrifices privacy for operational efficiency, well they do sacrifice privacy. 4. WTF are you talking about,visiting a mozilla webpage that doesn't give away analytics data to a third party gives better privacy than visiting a mozilla webpage that does. This is true whatever the rest of the world does. Besides mozilla has no reach on that billion of websites. I tend to differ, the track record does not exactly point toward shipping great software, nor protecting the interest of individuals. As shown by bugs marked as won't solve and inclusion of controversial features while removing other. So yup, you are missing the point because you seem blinded by your own vision.
- vdaniuk 11y ago
  >So yup, you are missing the point because you seem blinded by your own vision. I am ok with my views being challenged but remain unconvinced by your arguments.
cbd1984 11y ago
> Mozilla is one of the good, independent orgs So they say, but their actions, here, put them in with Google. > If they remove third-party analytics from their web properties, Mozilla instantly loses valuable actionable insights that significantly increase their efficiency as an organization. I disagree, and I fail to see what Mozilla needs from analytics badly enough to require them to partner with Google in such a privacy-robbing fashion. > If Mozilla loses operational efficiency, Google/Microsoft becomes more powerful and are able to obtain more users for Chrome/IE. They use all analytics they need. So Mozilla should feed Google more data? > No meaningful privacy increase for users is achieved, Google Analytics is now installed on (billions - 1) websites. You just said Google and Mozilla were in competition. Make up your mind.
- vdaniuk 11y ago
  Unless we discuss this issue in terms of cost/benefit analysis of various strategies I don't see a reason to continue this discussion.
  - pdkl95 11y ago
    Unless we discuss this issue in terms of respect for user privacy, the cost/benefit analysis isn't even relevant.9 The fact that something is useful doesn't automagically make it ethical. I'm sure aggregated GA provides a lot of useful information. Our point is that if you are using GA - for any reason - then you're a spy that prioritizes your addiction to analytics over the privacy the people visiting your site. Unfortunately, given you're posts in this thread, I don't expect you to understand this. Upton Sinclair was very insightful when he said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!". Have fun inspecting your analytics reports and using that data for another round of page tweaking and tuning; it maybe be more socially acceptable than the Twitter user who continually refreshes their latest post to watch their hit rate increase, but still a sign of addiction.

by vdaniuk 11y ago

mattmanser 11y ago

I mean this is an honest way, but what actionable insights? Mozilla aren't selling anything on that page. They won't be making key engineering decisions off of the page. Could you detail the gains that they could make that makes the world a better place? That justify any sort of tracking over '300, 000 people viewed this page today' that you can get from your own logs? There is some data that might be occasionally useful, like screen sizes, but only occasionally.

whichdan 11y ago
What about funnel analysis?
giovannibajo1 11y ago
I would say that browser usage, demography (country distribution etc.) and navigation paths (bounce rate, funnels, etc.) within the site are all important data points to optimize a non-profit website. I'm not sure anybody can make a point for GA to be life changing for that site, but the opposite is also true (the saving in privacy from visitors is not going to have a game-changing effect). I also think that a pragmatic organization should focus on a few very important battles that it thinks it can win, rather than trying to fight everything in the name of ideology.
- mattmanser 11y ago
  Browser usage is in the user agent string. Country is in the IP address. You don't need a third party analytics system for them. And none of this information will ever be used it is just gathered and sent to a third party.
Osmose 11y ago
Off the top of my head, based off things we normally look for in our analytics: - See how people get to the privacy page from where they enter the site. Useful to see if some categories are getting more traffic than others, so that we can re-balance if, for example, we think that Privacy is not getting the attention we want it to. - See how long people are staying on this page. What if the writing or infographic don't make sense to users? We can try and improve them so that users come away with a better understanding of privacy. - How are users interacting with those circles? If they're not hovering over any of the circles, maybe we should make it auto-switch between them to draw the user's eye over. Or maybe if they're only hovering over the first three, we should make those first three the most important aspects of privacy to make sure they're seen. The goal of Shape of the Web is (in my eyes) to educate users about the issues that the open internet faces today, and to help give them a framework for thinking about what the web is (it's hard to think about a thing if you don't know how it's "shaped"). All of these metrics help us improve the page's ability to convey information so we can better educate users.
- pdkl95 11y ago
  > - See how people get to the privacy page from where they enter the site. You don't need a 3rd party to learn the order of pages you served to any given client. That one is so simple you only need 'grep' and the server log. (aggregation into whatever statistics you want to learn is a trivial exercise left for the reader) > - See how long people are staying on this page. The entire point is that you do not have a right to that information, other than what you can infer from the client later loading another page. Applying technical methods to gain access to private information like this simply makes you the the spy invading people's privacy. Worse, as most people do not understand these technical details, you are a eavesdropper who is preying on ignorance. > so that users come away with a better understanding of privacy. ...while you simultaneously violate the same user's privacy. Do you seriously not understand that you're making the "We had to destroy the village in order to save it" style of ends-justify-the means argument that ignores how you've started to act like that which you are supposedly fighting against. > hovering over Again, the entire point is that you don't get to know that information. That is a perfect example of the type of data the privacy-focused people are trying to protect. We really don't give a damn if that information is useful; if you're recording anything beyond the HTTP requests you receive (the explicit request from the client), then you are the spy and therefore the enemy. If you want to understand how effective your pages are, find another way to deduce that information. This is why traditional businesses pay people to participate in focus groups, to name one example.
vdaniuk 11y ago
Sure, I'd love to elaborate on benefits for Mozilla and others that arise from use of GA. The list won't be exhaustive but will provide enough examples. 1. Mozilla launches a new translation initiative for Firefox that is announced on the index page and links to the landing page for the initiative. Google Analytics(GA) allows them to understand the clickthrough rate of the announcement and conversion rate of visitors joining the initiative for all combinations of channels/geographies/mediums and optimizing them. Benefit: Firefox users get better localization as more people join. 2. Mozilla Development Network(MDN, good) competes with W3Schools(bad) for top results in search engines for JS/HTML/CSS related queries. GA has great tools for analysis for search engine traffic and integration with Google Webmaster Tools(GWT) that provides data for MDN team to do better SEO. Benefit: MDN team increases traffic to their high-quality educational information and attracts attention of more users, strengthening Mozilla and Firefox brand. 3. Mozilla wants to teach web technologies to people and promote collaborations with Webmaker. Webmaker team can use Google Analytics custom events tool to collect and monitor specific users actions in the product. That provides data for optimization of onboarding experience for new users. For example, after upgrading UX/UI 50% more users will remix and publish a Webmake. Benefit: more users successfully learn web technologies and create web content for fun/profit. 4. Mozilla gets a significant amount of revenue from search engine deals. Every install of a browser directly translates in small, but measurable increase of funding for Mozilla's projects. Google Analytics content experiments is a great tool for A/B and multivariate testing for increasing conversions on their Firefox download pages. Benefit: Increase in browser installs, therefore increase in revenue, therefore increase of cool projects done by Mozilla. Really, this is just a tiny number of possible use cases of Google Analytics by Mozilla. The efficiency boost by using an advanced web analytics software is immense and there is no open source alternative. It's not Kerbal Space Program advanced level of analytics-foo, this is basic day-to-day stuff for growth hackers/startup founders/marketers/bloggers.
- mattmanser 11y ago
  How pathetically weak are all of them? And certainly doesn't need constantly running analytics or even only opt-in.
  - 11y ago

Osmose 11y ago

As a Mozilla Web Developer who has worked on several of our websites, including this one, this is exactly the thought process behind this kind of choice. It's the same thought process behind 90% of the things we do that people hate Mozilla for. People think Mozilla is pure and 100% ideal by whatever standards that they make up themselves, but the truth is that Mozilla is _pragmatic_. Sometimes we do things that aren't great because to do so otherwise would hurt the greater mission. For example, we don't exist to create 100% open source software 100% of the time. Instead, we _strongly_ believe what we say in our manifesto: "Free and open source software promotes the development of the Internet as a public resource." Sometimes, mostly when we're working with a partner (like a phone company) who can offer us significant leverage, we write some code that isn't immediately made public, and _that's okay_. Our end goal isn't to put more open source software in the world, it's to further the internet as a global public resource. (Mozilla is also so diverse and disjointed that sweeping generalizations like the ones I just made are completely inaccurate. We make mistakes and we make bad choices. Mozilla is more like several different companies that happen to share the same name.)

vdaniuk 11y ago
I trust Mozilla and fully support this pragmatic approach. The only alternative is total domination of for-profit megacorps who have diminishingly small concern for public benefit. Thank you for your contribution to the free/open web.

bigbugbag 11y ago

1. independent as in funded almost entirely by google and ads (ads implying a form of surveillance hence privacy issues). 2. Well that's a bold statement to make to say that web analytics have to be third party to provide valuable actionable insights. 3. I don't care about operational efficiency, I care about my privacy. If mozilla sacrifices privacy for operational efficiency, well they do sacrifice privacy. 4. WTF are you talking about,visiting a mozilla webpage that doesn't give away analytics data to a third party gives better privacy than visiting a mozilla webpage that does. This is true whatever the rest of the world does. Besides mozilla has no reach on that billion of websites. I tend to differ, the track record does not exactly point toward shipping great software, nor protecting the interest of individuals. As shown by bugs marked as won't solve and inclusion of controversial features while removing other. So yup, you are missing the point because you seem blinded by your own vision.

vdaniuk 11y ago
>So yup, you are missing the point because you seem blinded by your own vision. I am ok with my views being challenged but remain unconvinced by your arguments.

cbd1984 11y ago

> Mozilla is one of the good, independent orgs So they say, but their actions, here, put them in with Google. > If they remove third-party analytics from their web properties, Mozilla instantly loses valuable actionable insights that significantly increase their efficiency as an organization. I disagree, and I fail to see what Mozilla needs from analytics badly enough to require them to partner with Google in such a privacy-robbing fashion. > If Mozilla loses operational efficiency, Google/Microsoft becomes more powerful and are able to obtain more users for Chrome/IE. They use all analytics they need. So Mozilla should feed Google more data? > No meaningful privacy increase for users is achieved, Google Analytics is now installed on (billions - 1) websites. You just said Google and Mozilla were in competition. Make up your mind.

vdaniuk 11y ago
Unless we discuss this issue in terms of cost/benefit analysis of various strategies I don't see a reason to continue this discussion.
- pdkl95 11y ago
  Unless we discuss this issue in terms of respect for user privacy, the cost/benefit analysis isn't even relevant.9 The fact that something is useful doesn't automagically make it ethical. I'm sure aggregated GA provides a lot of useful information. Our point is that if you are using GA - for any reason - then you're a spy that prioritizes your addiction to analytics over the privacy the people visiting your site. Unfortunately, given you're posts in this thread, I don't expect you to understand this. Upton Sinclair was very insightful when he said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!". Have fun inspecting your analytics reports and using that data for another round of page tweaking and tuning; it maybe be more socially acceptable than the Twitter user who continually refreshes their latest post to watch their hit rate increase, but still a sign of addiction.