Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Web Analytics Illegal in UK after 26 May? Crazy

h30565.www3.hp.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 104 posts

Re: Web Analytics Illegal in UK after 26 May? Crazy

#51

Post by Iv »

scanr wrote: post #42
icebraining wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, their policy seems sensible and I'm having an hard time giving a fuck about the webmasters (is this still used?). If you want to track, do it properly with a package installed on your own server. stop subjecting your users to Google's All-Seeing Eye just because using their Analytics is easier for you.

There's a whole class of 'mom & pop' type websites out there that need analytics to function but: * It's hosted in a way that precludes putting your own analytics in there (github pages, s3 etc.) * The users lack the technical sophistication to install and manage their own analytics. I've just finished moving my wife's site to github pages. It's awesome. The mac github client is pretty friendly, I set up the repo and…

> There's a whole class of 'mom & pop' type websites out there that need analytics to function

If they are not skilled enough to install their own counter, I doubt they need analytics.

Re: Web Analytics Illegal in UK after 26 May? Crazy

#52

Post by toyg »

JohnnyFlash wrote: post #43

My company is going to ignore the law until someone pull's us up on it. This law will severely restrict our ability to analyse how users are interacting with our product. This law will compromise our ability to further improve our product and disadvantage us against foreign competitors. Our company doesn't track users off the site, we anonymise data so it cannot be tracked back to an individual... as far as we are co…

I'm not disagreeing with you, but you might want to reword this post. The internet doesn't forget, and you never know when some old post might be used against you.

Re: Web Analytics Illegal in UK after 26 May? Crazy

#53

Post by setrofim_ »

icebraining wrote: post #29
setrofim_ wrote: post #22

Wouldn't it be better to mandate that sites honor the Do Not Track* HTTP header, rather than require each site to explicitly seek user consent? * http://dnt.mozilla.org/

DNT is not implemented in most browsers, and it's not the default policy in any, AFAIK. It'd hardly have the same effect.

>DNT is not implemented in most browsers

That's true, but only (or at least, partly) because the sites can just ignore the header. If this became a standard HTTP hear and there was a requirement for it to be respected, browsers will quickly start supporting it.

>and it's not the default policy in any, AFAIK. It'd hardly have the same effect.

That's the whole point. It would still allow for analytics to be collected and made use of to improve web experience, while giving concerned users an easy way to opt out without being constantly hassled with "Will you allow us to track you?" question from each and every site they visit.

Re: Web Analytics Illegal in UK after 26 May? Crazy

#54

Post by gyardley »

ticks wrote: post #45
mryan wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you are in the minority - most people, even on HN, are probably comfortable (or apathetic :-) ) enough to accept the status quo. If you are really serious about protecting your privacy online, I imagine you already have your browser configured to deny all cookies except those which you explicitly accept. The tools to solve this problem already exist - either built in to the browser, or easily available as e…

I think you are seeing this from a limited viewpoint. There's lots of people out there who don't even understand what the internet is, you'd be lucky if they know what a browsers is. The EU is proactively protecting those people, much like has been done for decades with offline data protection.

Protecting them from what exactly?

I'm genuinely curious about this - what do you think gets done with a browser cookie that actually causes real harm to the user? Perhaps that should be regulated instead of the mechanism for it.

Re: Web Analytics Illegal in UK after 26 May? Crazy

#55

Post by leejw00t354 »

This really is crazy, most analytic applications track users anonymously anyway so there isn't really much privacy concern.

It's basically the same as keeping track of the number of customers a physical store gets in a day, or maybe the time customers spends in the store. This type of analytics is essential to offline and online businesses.

As a citizen of the UK I'm extremely disappointed.

Re: Web Analytics Illegal in UK after 26 May? Crazy

#56

Post by gcp »

_delirium wrote: post #9

The title is a little overly broad; as far as I can tell the only part of analytics that'll be impacted is setting cookies solely for tracking purposes. Lots of other kinds of web analytics will be fine. For example, you can do statistical analysis of your Apache logs, or of other cookies that you set in the regular course of operating the webapp.

No, you cannot. Just read the law. ANY kind of cookie requires PRIOR permissions.

Re: Web Analytics Illegal in UK after 26 May? Crazy

#57

Post by _delirium »

gcp wrote: post #56
_delirium wrote: post #9

The title is a little overly broad; as far as I can tell the only part of analytics that'll be impacted is setting cookies solely for tracking purposes. Lots of other kinds of web analytics will be fine. For example, you can do statistical analysis of your Apache logs, or of other cookies that you set in the regular course of operating the webapp.

No, you cannot. Just read the law. ANY kind of cookie requires PRIOR permissions.

Well, yes, but presumably you would ask your users to set those. For example, if you use Gmail, presumably you will agree to let Gmail set your login cookie. Then Google can do web analytics keyed off that; the law doesn't actually ban doing analytics.

Re: Web Analytics Illegal in UK after 26 May? Crazy

#58

Post by dhx »

setrofim_ wrote: post #22

Wouldn't it be better to mandate that sites honor the Do Not Track* HTTP header, rather than require each site to explicitly seek user consent? * http://dnt.mozilla.org/

§66 on page 20 of Directive 2009/136/EC at [1] seems to explicitly allow the use of Do-not-track header as an opt-in mechanism:

  Where it is technically possible and effective,
  in accordance with the relevant provisions of
  Directive 95/46/EC, the user’s consent to
  processing may be expressed by using the
  appropriate settings of a browser or other
  application.
[1] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2...

Re: Web Analytics Illegal in UK after 26 May? Crazy

#59

Post by wardenclyffe »

mapleoin wrote: post #49
wardenclyffe wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ICO would have website owners pop up a box to new users asking them to give consent to using cookies. Which if they refuse has to create a cookie so that their selection is remembered. (Edited for clarity)

Hah, ok. I got it now. That's funny.

I know, it's inspired.

Re: Web Analytics Illegal in UK after 26 May? Crazy

#60

Post by justincormack »

scanr wrote: post #28

The most likely impact it will have is that it will drive more advertisers to closed platforms like Facebook where gaining consent will be easier. That's not to say Facebook won't be impacted, given that they won't be able to passively collect analytics using the Facebook like button on sites. In terms of workarounds, here are a couple that I have found: * Don't be a UK based company While non UK companies are encour…

Facebook probably will continue to collect data from Like buttons as it is the site owner not them who has to get consent...
Post reply on HN