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UBlock defaults to blocking Google Analytics tracking

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Re: UBlock defaults to blocking Google Analytics tracking

#81

Post by zwetan »

gojomo wrote: post #46
dozy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is against the terms of service of Google analytics to pass any PII such that you can track an event back to any particular person. On top of that, the code for Google Analytics js is available for your review, along with its network requests, such that you can hold them to their word.

The section about "personally identifiable" information in the Google Analytics Terms of Service [1] does not limit Google, but the site using GA. Practically, I'm not sure that can even be enforced, or that Google has any incentive to enforce it. If a site uniquely tags each user via custom variables, or by sending users to a unique resource/goal/interim URL, will Google detect this and obscure/destroy the resulting…

you are allowed to uniquely identify a user with a "User ID" which is different than the "Client ID"

https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection...

Re: UBlock defaults to blocking Google Analytics tracking

#82

Post by phatfish »

bhouston wrote: post #6
mtmail wrote: post #3

If you read https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/#philosophy then that's not surprising at all. Disconnect.me also blocks Google Analytics.

Blocking standard analytics on small websites who do not server ads is being dick. Now I do not know who is using my website. I can not optimize it for longer user sessions, I can not figure out which are the most popular pages, I can not record client-side errors, I can not track caching and page load time. Basically this screws over those want to create good website experiences. Blinding us in this way is pretty us…

If I like a site, and they don't show obnoxious ads I often white-list it. It's up to you convince me.

Re: UBlock defaults to blocking Google Analytics tracking

#83

Post by nfoz »

Karunamon wrote: post #54
nfoz wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's spying hurts your users. To manage your webserver, use your server logs. If you really think you need more information than those convey, you could get some self-hosted javascript to assist with that. You need nothing else.

As mentioned upthread, even a self hosted solution like piwik is blocked by default. So great to see what we're sacrificing upon the dubious privacy altar...

Server-side log-analysis solutions are not possible to block.

I assume that piwik is running client-side javascript? Then it's in the interest of the client to block it; it's not a server-side solution anymore. Of course with self-hosted js, that's a cat-and-mouse game that the clients can't win anyway, but in the short-term the mouse has won.

Re: UBlock defaults to blocking Google Analytics tracking

#84

Post by nfoz »

Karunamon wrote: post #73
teamhappy wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think it's stupid to consider asking a client whether they're okay with you sending their personal data to another company? Just assuming that only a tiny minority of them actually care seems a bit careless. I don't like the EU cookie law either, but that's a completely different thing. The only thing they do have in common is that they make UX designer's lives a bit harder, but that's really no excuse.

Considering "their personal data" in this case consists of "what you clicked on my website", no, I don't think that should require any special permission. I think you and I have different definitions of personal data. When I hear that phrase, I think things like addresses, income, contacts, and so forth, but not email or phone numbers (both of which are basically public info), and certainly not what you clicked on my…

What someone clicks on websites is extremely sensitive private information. Extremely private sensitive matters of peoples' lives is directly observable in the things they click on websites.

Re: UBlock defaults to blocking Google Analytics tracking

#86

Post by gorhill »

bhouston wrote: post #78
_f71y wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could always respect your users and continue using Google Analytics etc. knowing that some of your users won't be tracked. Does missing out on the few people who use these tools actually have a meaningful effect on your ability to run your business? I understand how the crash reporters help you but do you really need Optimizely/Analytics/MixPanel etc. running on 100% of your client browsers?

uBlock is going to become very very popular. It isn't just going to be a small percentage of users. It is going to be the majority of tech savvy users. That is the problem. ublock isn't Ghostery or NoScript. It is being sold to most has an ad blocker, but really it blocks everything.

> ublock [...] is being sold to most has an ad blocker, but really it blocks everything.

This is the first sentence on the project page:

> µBlock is not an ad blocker; it's a general-purpose blocker.

And toward the end:

> Free. Open source. For users by users. No donations sought.

It's not "being sold".

Re: UBlock defaults to blocking Google Analytics tracking

#87

Post by bhouston »

gorhill wrote: post #86
bhouston wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uBlock is going to become very very popular. It isn't just going to be a small percentage of users. It is going to be the majority of tech savvy users. That is the problem. ublock isn't Ghostery or NoScript. It is being sold to most has an ad blocker, but really it blocks everything.

> ublock [...] is being sold to most has an ad blocker, but really it blocks everything. This is the first sentence on the project page: > µBlock is not an ad blocker; it's a general-purpose blocker. And toward the end: > Free. Open source. For users by users. No donations sought. It's not "being sold".

>> ublock [...] is being sold to most has an ad blocker, but really it blocks everything.

> It's not "being sold".

See definition #7 here of "sold": http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sold

"to cause to be accepted, especially generally or widely"

And it is, especially when all comparisons are with AdBlock Plus -- people are being told by you that uBlock is a faster, more efficient alternative to ABP:

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/%C2%B5Block-vs.-ABP:-...

Re: UBlock defaults to blocking Google Analytics tracking

#88

Post by mercer »

bhouston wrote: post #72
gergles wrote: post #48

The Panopticon approach of "I am entitled to everything about you and your browsing activity because I technically CAN get it" is very troublesome and I'm glad that µblock takes a small step to revert that. If some guy followed you around a store with a clipboard literally writing down microsecond-level details of your time spent in the store, you wouldn't be OK with that just because "I promise I didn't write down y…

uBlock's philosophy is to, by default, block crash reporters (bugsnag, newrelic) and all forms of analytics (customer.io, optimizely, kissmetrics, mixpanel, newrelic, pingdom, piwik) because it can. This is a stupid policy that hurts independent website developers because now I have to write my own version of these tools because if I use third-party services they will be listed in uBlock and blocked by default. It is…

Are any of these blocked services self-hosted? I sort-of agree with you if that is the case, but otherwise I'd say that it's entirely fair that a user use uBlock to keep these third parties from tracking their behavior.

Re: UBlock defaults to blocking Google Analytics tracking

#89

Post by mercer »

tombrossman wrote: post #30
bhouston wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blocking standard analytics on small websites who do not server ads is being dick. Now I do not know who is using my website. I can not optimize it for longer user sessions, I can not figure out which are the most popular pages, I can not record client-side errors, I can not track caching and page load time. Basically this screws over those want to create good website experiences. Blinding us in this way is pretty us…

I think it's a mistake to think that people who visit your site somehow 'owe you' and should permit third-party tracking code from your site to run in their browser. I understand your points about wanting metrics to learn from, but when you bring in a third party all bets are off and individual visitors (like me) will choose not to run that tracking code. Don't forget there are other ways of achieving what you want t…

Apparently Piwik is blocked too. I think that's a shame, as in my opinion self-hosted tracking solutions should be acceptable.

Re: UBlock defaults to blocking Google Analytics tracking

#90

Post by tombrossman »

mercer wrote: post #89
tombrossman wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a mistake to think that people who visit your site somehow 'owe you' and should permit third-party tracking code from your site to run in their browser. I understand your points about wanting metrics to learn from, but when you bring in a third party all bets are off and individual visitors (like me) will choose not to run that tracking code. Don't forget there are other ways of achieving what you want t…

Apparently Piwik is blocked too. I think that's a shame, as in my opinion self-hosted tracking solutions should be acceptable.

The Piwik use-case I was referring to is to run it from your imported logs, not the default JS tracking. Because the visitors can't circumvent server logging, you get analytics and also boost page speed.
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