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We removed advertising cookies, here's what happened

blog.sentry.io

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Re: We removed advertising cookies, here's what happened

#111

Post by zeeg »

math_dandy wrote: post #92

Article mentions Sentry's shift from tracking to "brand and awareness marketing". Thanks to their recently acquired Syntax Podcast (recommended), I am now quite aware of their brand. Seems like a positive, creative approach to marketing. I wonder if there is a noticeable "Syntax effect" in their business metrics.

Hard to tell as we always advertised with Syntax. I would say the investments are related, but not connected (and made independently). We love Syntax, believe in brand advertising, and wanted to push more thre. We also hate the CX of cookie banners, I personally dislike wasteful tracking, and wanted to push the boundaries a bit on that front.

Re: We removed advertising cookies, here's what happened

#112

Post by [deleted] »

soyyo wrote: post #69
jefftk wrote: post #63

While they removed cookie banners and say they no longer include dependencies that set cookies, browsing around the site for a bit I still see several cookies set. For example, visiting https://changelog.getsentry.com I get first-party cookies "_GRECAPTCHA", "ph_phc_UlHlA3tIQlE89WRH9NSy0MzlOg1XYiUXnXiYjKBJ4OT_posthog", and "_launchnotes_session", plus third-party cookie "_GRECAPTCHA" on recaptcha.net. Similarly, visi…

I believe that under GDPR cookies that are used only for technical purposes and not related to personal information are exempt from any consent and don't need to be informed with the infamous cookie banner. Is not about cookies, is about their content and purpose.

[deleted]

Re: We removed advertising cookies, here's what happened

#113

Post by jefftk »

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #107
jefftk wrote: post #63

While they removed cookie banners and say they no longer include dependencies that set cookies, browsing around the site for a bit I still see several cookies set. For example, visiting https://changelog.getsentry.com I get first-party cookies "_GRECAPTCHA", "ph_phc_UlHlA3tIQlE89WRH9NSy0MzlOg1XYiUXnXiYjKBJ4OT_posthog", and "_launchnotes_session", plus third-party cookie "_GRECAPTCHA" on recaptcha.net. Similarly, visi…

You're right that fighting these cookies is not trivial and automation helps a lot. The remaining cookies are functional ones which are needed to use the sandbox for instance. That the changelog sets cookies is a known issue that will be resolved once the changelog is moved off launchnotes.

Thanks! Also, I did figure out how to reproduce the Vimeo player cookie. If I visit https://docs.sentry.io/product/performance/performance-video... I get a __cf_bm cookie from player.vimeo.com.

Re: We removed advertising cookies, here's what happened

#114

Post by zelphirkalt »

masto wrote: post #43
zelphirkalt wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is really not very complicated. It is actually very simple. When I visit a new website, I check what it requests using uBlock Origin. Then just block those unwanted stuff. If the website does not work without something like Google fonts or tag manager or whatever other bloat, it means, that it is shoddy-made, by an either uninformed or ignorant entity. It probably is illegal according to EU law as well, since I ne…

And other than being stressed and annoyed and having to fuss with a bunch of extra stuff to use the Internet, this makes your life better how?

Websites load faster. I filter out BS websites with low information density. I avoid ads and being tracked by random companies that I don't trust. I feel more comfortable visiting websites knowing, that my personal data does not automatically flow to random companies. I don't have to sit through YouTube ads either. I get what I came for, then I leave. To me this is a great benefit.

But lets not forget, that we are all part of a human society. Almost no ones, if anyone's behavior has no effect on others. By using the Internet like I do, I am also acting in a responsible way regarding my effect on society. We need more people resisting big tech surveillance and daily violation of privacy. I hope some day more of us can look beyond immediate personal benefit.

Re: We removed advertising cookies, here's what happened

#115

Post by mark_story »

jefftk wrote: post #110
mark_story wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sentrysid, sc, and sudo cookies are all login state cookies btw.

They might be tracking whether I'm logged in, but since I didn't log into the site I didn't consent for them to store that state on my client. The e-Privacy directive is quite particular, and unless these cookies are "strictly necessary" to operate the sandbox they're not allowed.

I believe that knowing whether or not you are logged would be part of the strictly necessary.

Re: We removed advertising cookies, here's what happened

#116

Post by pmontra »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #103
ThePowerOfFuet wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're running a complex modern site and decide to do away with cookie banners, you generally need to pair this with browser automation that crawls your site and verifies that you (and your dependencies) are in fact not setting any cookies. Correction: any cookies which are not technically required for the basic operation of the site (such as a shopping cart ID).

I'm out of the loop on the latest and greatest web technologies: if I'm a shopping cart website, how do I keep track of you as a user/session enough to identify you and pair you to the contents of your cart on my backend without a cookie? Cramming a sessionId into localStorage/sessionStorage seems kind of like the same thing? Am I missing somehting?

Before cookies we used session ids in the query string of the URLs. Maybe you noticed some URL with a JSESSIONID argument in the URL. Same thing.

Those are worse than cookies for a number of reasons but they are functionally equivalent.

Anyway, there is nothing wrong with cookies in general. Privacy-wise the problem are cookies used for tracking. Any other technology would have the same problems and would need an explicit consent from the user, if you are subject to GDPR and similar legislation.

Re: We removed advertising cookies, here's what happened

#117

Post by jefftk »

mark_story wrote: post #115
jefftk wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might be tracking whether I'm logged in, but since I didn't log into the site I didn't consent for them to store that state on my client. The e-Privacy directive is quite particular, and unless these cookies are "strictly necessary" to operate the sandbox they're not allowed.

I believe that knowing whether or not you are logged would be part of the strictly necessary.

The way most sites do this is that absence of a cookie indicates not logged in; any reason this wouldn't work here?

Re: We removed advertising cookies, here's what happened

#118

Post by shaky-carrousel »

mark_story wrote: post #115
jefftk wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might be tracking whether I'm logged in, but since I didn't log into the site I didn't consent for them to store that state on my client. The e-Privacy directive is quite particular, and unless these cookies are "strictly necessary" to operate the sandbox they're not allowed.

I believe that knowing whether or not you are logged would be part of the strictly necessary.

You don't need to set a cookie to know that I'm not logged in. The lack of cookies means I'm not logged in.

Re: We removed advertising cookies, here's what happened

#119

Post by jefftk »

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #107
jefftk wrote: post #63

While they removed cookie banners and say they no longer include dependencies that set cookies, browsing around the site for a bit I still see several cookies set. For example, visiting https://changelog.getsentry.com I get first-party cookies "_GRECAPTCHA", "ph_phc_UlHlA3tIQlE89WRH9NSy0MzlOg1XYiUXnXiYjKBJ4OT_posthog", and "_launchnotes_session", plus third-party cookie "_GRECAPTCHA" on recaptcha.net. Similarly, visi…

You're right that fighting these cookies is not trivial and automation helps a lot. The remaining cookies are functional ones which are needed to use the sandbox for instance. That the changelog sets cookies is a known issue that will be resolved once the changelog is moved off launchnotes.

Poking around a bit more, visiting https://sentry.io/auth/login/ but performing no action sets first-party cookies __stripe_mid, __stripe_sid, session, and sentry-sc. If I don't log in, but then visit other pages on the site those cookies are still sent.

I don't see why it's necessary that that these cookies be set before I actually log into the page? Or, if it is necessary for a non-obvious reason, I don't see why they need to be sent when visiting other pages under sentry.io instead of being scoped to /auth/login/ ?

Re: We removed advertising cookies, here's what happened

#120

Post by masklinn »

zelon88 wrote: post #65
potatoproduct wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a user you'll probably find you get more clickbait, more ads, more paywalls, less access to high quailty content, etc as publishers scramble to survive. (Because the value of their ad inventory drops.) And as marketing is less efficient, higher budgets are required to drive the same results. We can potentially expect to see these costs gradually passed on to the consumers and watch more businesses fail.

How many times do you actually click on, or buy things from the ads you are shown? You make it sound like we should all be grateful. Like ads are adding value to our lives. They don't. Outside of marketing, nobody cares about ads. We train our cognition to cancel out ads. We avoid them. The only people looking at ads and appreciating them are the ones, like yourself, who find them useful for things nobody asked for.…

The part I like most is how every time I buy something I then get ads about that exact thing.

Mate I've already bought the thing, I'm not making a collection, and I'm not buying a $200 ham every other week either, that was a christmas gift you goof.

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