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Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

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Re: Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

#101
post #96

We run Matomo (formerly Piwik), and I recommend it. It's actually better than Google Analytics in some ways, and you get your own data. This makes deeper analytics easier and also helps protect user privacy since the data is held only by the operators of the site being visited.

Are you happy with how fast the data loads in Matomo? I tried their online demo and everything load very slowly and content kept jumping around, it felt pretty bad in terms of UX.

Re: Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

#102
post #101
post #96

We run Matomo (formerly Piwik), and I recommend it. It's actually better than Google Analytics in some ways, and you get your own data. This makes deeper analytics easier and also helps protect user privacy since the data is held only by the operators of the site being visited.

Are you happy with how fast the data loads in Matomo? I tried their online demo and everything load very slowly and content kept jumping around, it felt pretty bad in terms of UX.

Agreed on this – everything in Matomo is slow and I find the UI clunky.

Re: Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

#104
post #95

I've done a bit more reading. This is not as dramatic as it seems. First party GA is not blocked. Access to 3rd party storage may be blocked, but this would not prevent web interactions from being visible to GA.

Source?

There are a few threads in Twitter where people are discussing the validity of this article's claim. Here are the two most prominent (referenced in the article) [1], [2].

[1]: https://twitter.com/TomAnthonySEO/status/1275524965077524482

[2]: https://twitter.com/SimoAhava/status/1275151672218705922

Re: Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

#105
I wish Apple would enable this at the OS level, though in the long run it won't matter. People will proxy requests and find all sorts of ways around it. It's an arms race with billions of dollars on one side and a vague sense of "privacy would be nice" on the other.

Re: Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What security incidents? Of all tech companies I'd feel most secure with Google being the stewards of my data.

If google makes you feel more secure that doesn't mean it's secure. Feeling secure perhaps works for you but if we would assess how they deal with our data they would be quite far from pool of companies we can trust with data. And that's only based on what we know currently from security incidents.

I have worked for a few years at Google and have a decent insight into all the processes that go into keeping user data secure. It's perfectly fine to have your reservations but so far as I am concerned, I sleep well.

I don't share the same confidence for all my data that is floating around carelessly in some government spreadsheet somewhere, though.

Re: Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source?

There are a few threads in Twitter where people are discussing the validity of this article's claim. Here are the two most prominent (referenced in the article) [1], [2]. [1]: https://twitter.com/TomAnthonySEO/status/1275524965077524482 [2]: https://twitter.com/SimoAhava/status/1275151672218705922

Simo Ahava is an authority on GA.

Re: Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

#109
post #96

We run Matomo (formerly Piwik), and I recommend it. It's actually better than Google Analytics in some ways, and you get your own data. This makes deeper analytics easier and also helps protect user privacy since the data is held only by the operators of the site being visited.

Piwik utterly failed (for me) for any semi-high traffic site. Simply couldn't hand large volume logs fast enough no matter what hardware we threw at it:(

Re: Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

#110
post #97
post #95

I've done a bit more reading. This is not as dramatic as it seems. First party GA is not blocked. Access to 3rd party storage may be blocked, but this would not prevent web interactions from being visible to GA.

What is the difference between First party and third party GA?

All cookies set via Javascript code are 1st party, and belong to the site that was in the address bar when the code ran (unless they are in a frame).

GA primarily utilises 1st party JS cookies. If you have GA on example.com then the cookie will be stored against example.com. One of these cookies stores a unique ID for you as a user.

GA will then send 'beacons' (GET requests to Google endpoint, with data passed in URL parameters) for pageviews and other events. Your unique ID is included in these URL parameters, which allows the various events from you to be joined up into a 'session'. That has not changed.

Apple's ITP affects both 3rd party HTTP cookies and 1st party JS cookies.

The main impact of ITP on GA is to limit the age of these cookies to auto delete after 7 days (usually), meaning that if you leave a site for more than 7 days your new session won't be able to be joined up with your previous session.

There is an edge case where ITP 3rd party cookie limits will directly block GA JS cookies, which is when it is running inside an iFrame (hat tip to Simo [1] for alerting me to this), in which case the JS code may not be able to set a cookie and will not fire a beacon.

[1] https://twitter.com/SimoAhava

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