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13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

markosaric.com

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Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#111

Post by sigwinch28 »

__alexs wrote: post #20

Slightly off topic: Plausible claim that their cookieless tracking is GDPR compliant but this seems a bit shaky to me. Unless they are doing something that isn't specified in their docs their fingerprinting seems reversible which would make their user identifiers PII like any session ID you'd store in a cookie. AIUI the GDPR doesn't particularly care about cookies, it cares about you tracking people without their con…

The answer is: it depends.

The GDPR allows for collection and processing without consent for several reasons including (but not limited to) legal requirement (e.g. anti-fraud) and legitimate interests (e.g. app install conversions).

The GDPR is also quite clear that consent is not required to collect _anonymous_ data, i.e. data which in no way can be traced back to the individual, but this requires balancing with the other principles of the regulation. Recital 26 of the GDPR states:

“…The principles of data protection should therefore not apply to anonymous information, namely information which does not relate to an identified or identifiable natural person or to personal data rendered anonymous in such a manner that the data subject is not or no longer identifiable. This Regulation does not therefore concern the processing of such anonymous information, including for statistical or research purposes.”

Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#112

Post by GuB-42 »

michaelt wrote: post #70
cm2187 wrote: post #8

I am not surprised by the low iOS numbers, adblockers are a pain to setup and I haven’t found one as good as ublock origin. Would anyone have recommendation for a good iOS adblocker?

> I haven’t found one as good as ublock origin. That's because ublock origin uses an API that is not available on iOS/Safari If you want to be generous to Apple, they're trying to stop the 90% of trash adblockers like ABP, and great adblockers like UBO are collateral damage. A cynic would say that's a combination of an admission their app store review process can't catch evildoers; and a cynical result of the fact th…

90% of everything is crap (Sturgeon's law) so by that reasoning, you can block everything.

And I don't know what ABP on iOS does or how it changed but the original extension wasn't trash. Sure, it has that controversial "acceptable ads" policy but it can be disabled by just unchecking a box in the settings once. I took a look at the code, compared it to a "cleaned" extension called AdBlock Edge and there wasn't much that unchecking that box didn't do.

Like most people, I switched to uBlock, then UBO, but performance was the main driver. Unless there ave been some major change ABP still fit my needs, UBO is better for me but it doesn't mean the other is trash.

Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#113

Post by JeanMarcS »

markosaric wrote: post #44
TomGullen wrote: post #10

Better way perhaps we do is compare Cloudflare visitors to GA visitors over same time frame. This method doesn’t measure people with JS disabled. I think it’s important to remember also with large numbers a percent of users blocking GA is likely not a big deal - you just want something generally accurate. Switching analytics providers to get more data isn’t in itself a reason to switch. If people care about payload s…

My idea was to use server logs too but AWStats showed more than 100% higher number of unique visitors and more than 18 times higher number in page views (both compared to Plausible numbers) so I excluded it from the study as I thought it’s very inaccurate.

As I understand that unique visitor would be higher (awstats, IIRC, considers that after an hour, a same IP is a new visitor), I don't get how you can have that number for page views. I guess it depends on people gowing back to pages and JS is not executed, but logs are updated ?

Strange.

Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#115

Post by b112 »

lsaferite wrote: post #94
b112 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often I try to help sites with more generic, borked issues. Your comment about "Oh boy, will they tell you" brought one to the fore. I sent the following to a site. Do you think I received a response? A reply? Either they don't actually read emails from customers, or they employ a person which became 'confused', and their eyes glazed over, once they failed to understand the message. (Note that I sent to about 5 email…

I think the humour at the start might have been enough to make many people not read the email TBH. Something a little less tongue-in-cheek and simply nice/approachable is likely to net a better chance of response.

While I know why you say this, I find it matters little.

I've started emails off with (very close to):

"NOTE: this is a technical issue. You may not understand it. Please forward to a technical person", with a lot of variety on that line.

These too garner little response.

I've started out with problem first, then tech info. It seems to matter little, and my humour via that first line, was an attempt to amuse non-technical types into reading further.

I must have concocted > 100 over the years. Perhaps 10% responded, regardless of the layout or form of the email. Even 10% is generous.

The reality? Anything technical, no matter how presented, is too confusing for many.

Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#116

Post by yomly »

throwaways885 wrote: post #88
yomly wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sigh - the number of websites which were broken when browsing the internet from China because trackers from Facebook were not wrapped in exception handling and the endpoints were blocked. Literally couldn't give the companies business. /rage

Why should any company care about an authoritarian regime blocking facebook.com?

Because when I visit a theatre website to book tickets, whether or not Facebook can stalk me is an orthogonal concern to the primary one of "let me give you my money for your tickets"

The number of pages that silently fail or time out after 5-10 mines due to these assumptions is really disappointing.

We live in a globally connected world, maybe assuming that a person in China today might be still in China tomorrow is a bad one. But in the meantime you may have left money on the table.

Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#117

Post by b112 »

angus-prune wrote: post #102
lsaferite wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the humour at the start might have been enough to make many people not read the email TBH. Something a little less tongue-in-cheek and simply nice/approachable is likely to net a better chance of response.

Hard agree. You don't describe the business problem, but go into incredible detail about technical details that either nobody reading the email[1] cares about. Even more than that - you're basically asking them to run random bash commands from the internet. They shouldn't trust your advice, anything you say would have to be verified by their own team, so the level of technical info is useless to them. In fact, includ…

I get it, please see my other response.

RE: random bash commands. Part of the reason I linked shopify's SPF page to them -- an attempt to provide external validation.

But I get it. Which is why, as I mention in that other response, it doesn't matter what I send. Even pleas to forward to a technical person = ignored.

(I bet lots of tech people get forwarded all sorts of crap that IS a scam, so yell "DON'T FORWARD THIS STUFF TO ME".)

In fact, I have even called some places. One started screaming at me. I'm guessing some phone scam "got them", and therefore equated me to the same.

What can you do?

I mean, seriously?

Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#118

Post by vntok »

superkuh wrote: post #114

What happened to using your web logs? It requires absolutely no javascript and no third parties and there's no invasion of privacy.

It also is completely useless because of the tens of thousands requests random bots and hacking tools do each day on most websites, the many network hops for mobile users, the utterly impossible task of counting time spent per page (on active tab), conversion tracking and so many data that web logs aren't designed to collect or present in any useful way.

Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#119

Post by ThePhysicist »

sigwinch28 wrote: post #111
__alexs wrote: post #20

Slightly off topic: Plausible claim that their cookieless tracking is GDPR compliant but this seems a bit shaky to me. Unless they are doing something that isn't specified in their docs their fingerprinting seems reversible which would make their user identifiers PII like any session ID you'd store in a cookie. AIUI the GDPR doesn't particularly care about cookies, it cares about you tracking people without their con…

The answer is: it depends. The GDPR allows for collection and processing without consent for several reasons including (but not limited to) legal requirement (e.g. anti-fraud) and legitimate interests (e.g. app install conversions). The GDPR is also quite clear that consent is not required to collect _anonymous_ data, i.e. data which in no way can be traced back to the individual, but this requires balancing with the…

It's not so easy, as anonymization is also considered a processing activity (there is still a debate around this but the legal opinion around this seems to solidify), so you cannot just say "I'm anonymizing this data so I can collect it without asking". You will need a legal basis for processing your customers information.

Also, the ePrivacy directive (and the upcoming ePivacy regulation) impose additional constraints on what kind of data collection requires consent, so again you usually can't just refer to the exemption of the GDPR for anonymous data when collecting telemtry from your users, even if you anonymize the data on your server.

Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#120

Post by ThePhysicist »

__alexs wrote: post #20

Slightly off topic: Plausible claim that their cookieless tracking is GDPR compliant but this seems a bit shaky to me. Unless they are doing something that isn't specified in their docs their fingerprinting seems reversible which would make their user identifiers PII like any session ID you'd store in a cookie. AIUI the GDPR doesn't particularly care about cookies, it cares about you tracking people without their con…

You also have to adhere to the ePrivacy directive, which specifies, among other things, how you are allowed to identify users on their devices (e.g. using cookies).
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