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The scourge of web analytics

stavros.io

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Re: The scourge of web analytics

#21

Post by StavrosK »

jastingo wrote: post #11

I fully agree with the sentiment (if not the tone) of this post; namely, consumer tracking across the web has run rampant without much consideration of its long-term cost to both consumer privacy and user experience. However, I do find the blog post's use of Google Analytics and the Facebook like button both indicates and perpetuates the very problem the OP is posting about. The simplicity and convenience to the cont…

It turns out that there are easy alternatives to this, and some were posted in this thread (like Shariff). I have replaced all the social buttons with static alternatives, and soon I will be able to remove tracking as well in favor of GoAccess, so it's not as bad as it sounds!

Re: The scourge of web analytics

#22

Post by StavrosK »

Raphmedia wrote: post #18
StavrosK wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great project, thank you! Another alternative that was suggested above (that looks a bit better, in my opinion) is Shariff: https://github.com/heiseonline/shariff

They are different in the way that SocialSharePrivacy uses the actual badges while Shariff uses custom elements that link to the social network pages.

That's true, SocialSharePrivacy loads the script after they've been requested, which is the much better way to do this (if you're going to).

Re: The scourge of web analytics

#23

Post by JohnTHaller »

StavrosK wrote: post #17
JohnTHaller wrote: post #13

You can have a static button for "Share" on Facebook. I'm currently using static image buttons that allow you to Share on Facebook, Tweet on Twitter, Share on Google+, Share on LinkedIn and Share on StumbleUpon (should probably remove that one) on my personal site: http://johnhaller.com/ The code for Share on Facebook is (hoping HN doesn't mangle this): https://www.facebook.com/" onclick="windowpop(' https://www.face…

Thank you, but you forgot to include the "windowpop" function :) I'd love it if I can replace both the Facebook button and GA on my site with something static, thanks. EDIT: Done, the URL is: " rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=

Ah, quite right, sorry...

  
  function windowpop(url, width, height) {
      var leftPosition, topPosition;
      //Allow for borders.
      leftPosition = (window.screen.width / 2) - ((width / 2) + 10);
      //Allow for title and status bars.
      topPosition = (window.screen.height / 2) - ((height / 2) + 50);
      //Open the window.
      window.open(url+document.URL, "Window2", "status=no,height=" + height + ",width=" + width + ",resizable=yes,left=" + leftPosition + ",top=" + topPosition + ",screenX=" + leftPosition + ",screenY=" + topPosition + ",toolbar=no,menubar=no,scrollbars=no,location=no,directories=no");
  }

Re: The scourge of web analytics

#24

Post by StavrosK »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #23
StavrosK wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you, but you forgot to include the "windowpop" function :) I'd love it if I can replace both the Facebook button and GA on my site with something static, thanks. EDIT: Done, the URL is: " rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=

Ah, quite right, sorry... function windowpop(url, width, height) { var leftPosition, topPosition; //Allow for borders. leftPosition = (window.screen.width / 2) - ((width / 2) + 10); //Allow for title and status bars. topPosition = (window.screen.height / 2) - ((height / 2) + 50); //Open the window. window.open(url+document.URL, "Window2", "status=no,height=" + height + ",width=" + width + ",resizable=yes,left=" + lef…

Thank you, unfortunately HN eats that. Here it is, better formatted: https://www.pastery.net/fwytsv/

Re: The scourge of web analytics

#25

Post by skinnymuch »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #13

You can have a static button for "Share" on Facebook. I'm currently using static image buttons that allow you to Share on Facebook, Tweet on Twitter, Share on Google+, Share on LinkedIn and Share on StumbleUpon (should probably remove that one) on my personal site: http://johnhaller.com/ The code for Share on Facebook is (hoping HN doesn't mangle this): https://www.facebook.com/" onclick="windowpop(' https://www.face…

Genuine question since you mentioned probably removing StumbleUpon. Does anyone share with Google+?

Re: The scourge of web analytics

#26

Post by badosu »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #23
StavrosK wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you, but you forgot to include the "windowpop" function :) I'd love it if I can replace both the Facebook button and GA on my site with something static, thanks. EDIT: Done, the URL is: " rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=

Ah, quite right, sorry... function windowpop(url, width, height) { var leftPosition, topPosition; //Allow for borders. leftPosition = (window.screen.width / 2) - ((width / 2) + 10); //Allow for title and status bars. topPosition = (window.screen.height / 2) - ((height / 2) + 50); //Open the window. window.open(url+document.URL, "Window2", "status=no,height=" + height + ",width=" + width + ",resizable=yes,left=" + lef…

You can post content in verbatim by indenting it by 2 or more spaces (https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc)

Re: The scourge of web analytics

#27

Post by heheocoenev »

stavros wrote: post #20
jagthebeetle wrote: post #19

Disclaimer: I'm a bit of a GA power user; although being on the technical side, I'm not really sympathetic towards the marketing uses for analytical data. There's a tough line to draw between excessive and sufficient instrumentation for a given app, and a business will probably opt for more than less data. I'm not sure that's a moral argument against tools like GA, though. Especially given one particularly compelling…

That's a very interesting notion, I didn't know you could use a GA pixel. That's a much better alternative to the full-blown JS tracker, thank you.

What about running your own service like piwik?

Re: The scourge of web analytics

#28

Post by StavrosK »

heheocoenev wrote: post #27
stavros wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very interesting notion, I didn't know you could use a GA pixel. That's a much better alternative to the full-blown JS tracker, thank you.

What about running your own service like piwik?

That would be best, I tried to run it for me but my needs are too simple for a full-blown solution like that. I'm currently trying to just add a tracking image to my own server so I can count visits.

Re: The scourge of web analytics

#29

Post by lucideer »

jagthebeetle wrote: post #19

Disclaimer: I'm a bit of a GA power user; although being on the technical side, I'm not really sympathetic towards the marketing uses for analytical data. There's a tough line to draw between excessive and sufficient instrumentation for a given app, and a business will probably opt for more than less data. I'm not sure that's a moral argument against tools like GA, though. Especially given one particularly compelling…

> Anonymize/obliterate the IP/geolocation info? Override the IP field to a static value.

This might affect the IP you see in the GA dashboard, but it's worth noting that Google still get the user's IP as long as the client makes any connection to a Google server (via JS or pixel).

> you can even implement measurement protocol serverside

This is the only way for a site owner to truly get full control over what data you send to GA (while still using GA), but it robs the site visitor of the option to opt out using client-side tools like uMatrix, &c. This is the one small advantage of the rise of client-side tracking: as a visitor I can get a reasonably good overview of which third parties your sending my data to.

Re: The scourge of web analytics

#30

Post by gator-io »

I could never understand why any ecommerce company would use GA. They are collecting your user's data for ad targeting. Well, guess what? They target ads to your users for competitor's products.

You browse a site that has GA on it looking to buy a bike, then that user get hit with bike ads on other sites that host Google ads. Almost every site owner I've spoken to about this issue was unaware of it.

Server side analytics prevents this, or use an analytics package that has no advertising business.

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