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Ask HN: How can I trust Google Analytics?

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Ask HN: How can I trust Google Analytics?

#1
I've made a small proof of concept with Google Analytics. I was checking that running the frontend code coming from my localhost I could already receive the events on my Google Analytics (GA) account. So GA is just not running any kind of validation on where the events are coming from (domain check or something). Then, since the tracking ID remains public, it's possible to just send any kind of event using someone else's tracking ID, therefore messing with their insights in their GA dashboard. I have published the code on github.com/goferito/gapoc in case someone wants to take a look, even though it's pretty simple.

So the question is, how can I know someone is not sending events (pageview events or whatever) using my tracking ID? Is there any way in GA to filter those, before or after GA stores them?

Re: Ask HN: How can I trust Google Analytics?

#8
We just ran into a problem with Google Analytics trying to track opening clicks by sending an event to GA. Turns out when you click a link to open it, the browser page would load before the event to GA could be sent.

Screwed up a huge amount of our click tracking data on GA.

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