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Who wants to be tracked?

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Re: Who wants to be tracked?

#231

Post by operator-name »

TekMol wrote: post #15

I have switched one of my sites to cookieless analytics and it is bad for everybody. I can't even say how many users this site has now. It could be the same user coming back over and over. Or many users. How would I know. Yes, I could track a ton of stats about every pageview like user agent, screen resolution etc and then try to stitch it back together. Trying to figure out how many different users there are. But th…

But it's not a question of PII, it's about processing for legitimate interests[0]. If you follow the guidelines then collecting and processing specific anonamised stories is not a problem, cookies or not.

[0]: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protectio...

Re: Who wants to be tracked?

#232

Post by chrismorgan »

kruuuder wrote: post #56
MaxikCZ wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uBlock origin with appropriate filter turner on.

You still have to find filter lists that work though. I use uBlock origin and frequently run into problems where cookie popups are half-blocked - the dialog is no longer visible, but I still cannot interact with or scroll the website. To work around that, I have to deactivate uBlock's cosmetic filters so that I can see the dialog again, then deny cookies. Pretty annoying, I haven't found a setup that fixes that.

Most of the time I have JavaScript disabled as well (only for specific sites and in Private Browsing windows do I have it enabled), which will slightly confound this anecdote, but I believe it was mid-2020 when I last encountered a site that uBlock Origin plus cookie-banner-blocking lists broke the page in the way you describe, and only ever a very few times before that.

Re: Who wants to be tracked?

#233

Post by godelski »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #12

Better question here is, why is this not handled through the browser instead of relying on individual web apps to do it. Block third party cookies by default, delete other cookies on the last tab or window closed and prompt user to save cookies on a form submit ("do not delete cookies for this domain when leaving" type of prompt, for pages with logins, settings, etc). Also remove features that make easy fingerprintin…

> Also remove features that make easy fingerprinting possible

Is this (reasonably) possible? If you ever do a graphics project you'll find that it is pretty difficult to get a pixel perfect render. Hence canvas fingerprinting[0]. (same happens for text rendering)

The problem can come down to the silicon lottery as well as the browser[1]. If you render the same code on two different machines, with the same compiler and libraries, you won't get pixel perfect difference. And GPUs don't match CPUs, though can if you edit the FMA instructions. Usually the best way to ensure images are exactly the same is to compare between Macs because the hardware is very similar and similarly binned. So Macs tend to have lower fingerprints in general (to the best of my knowledge) Current canvas blockers tend to just return a value, but that can obviously be a fingerprint itself.

So my question is if this is reasonably solved? I don't see it by being just the browser unless they can specifically just block a lot of that tracking. Which may require a big actor like Google or Apple to make a stand.

(Note: not an expert, but have done a decent amount of visualization work)

[0] https://privacycheck.sec.lrz.de/active/fp_c/fp_canvas.html

[1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/47696956/display-pixel-p...

Re: Who wants to be tracked?

#234

Post by pie_flavor »

denton-scratch wrote: post #189
TekMol wrote: post #15

I have switched one of my sites to cookieless analytics and it is bad for everybody. I can't even say how many users this site has now. It could be the same user coming back over and over. Or many users. How would I know. Yes, I could track a ton of stats about every pageview like user agent, screen resolution etc and then try to stitch it back together. Trying to figure out how many different users there are. But th…

> and it is bad for everybody Hang on, it's not bad for me . If I visit your site, it's not because I want to participate in some kind of A/B testing (whose results you'll never tell me about). And if your site only works if I happen to have hardware X installed, you don't need analytics to tell you that your site is broken. > European companies need to bug all users and beg for cookies. That's nonsense. If cookies a…

> If I visit your site, it's not because I want to participate in some kind of A/B testing

Nobody wants to be part of the A/B testing; everyone wants the polished product that's the result of A/B testing.

> And if your site only works if I happen to have hardware X installed, you don't need analytics to tell you that your site is broken.

What? Yes you do, or something similar.

> If cookies are needed for the correct operation of the site, then there's no need to beg or bug.

Strictly needed. Suppose I have a dark theme slider, or a language selector, for users who don't want me to follow their OS's settings (or can't or don't know how to change their OS's settings). That's a nonessential cookie which requires the banner.

And if you disagree, your opinion is not worth a lawsuit; the only way to be sure that your use of cookies is limited to those strictly necessary is hire a very expensive european consultant.

Re: Who wants to be tracked?

#235

Post by JadeNB »

dylan604 wrote: post #187
todd8 wrote: post #177

My spouse will sometimes mention in conversation with others that I invented the cookie. This always puts me on the spot, and I have to enter into a long explanation of the what and the why of cookies least they believe that I some sort of evil software hacker. (Now for a short explanation so that HN readers don’t think that I’m an evil hacker: I invented them, with the help of a colleague, while at IBM where we were…

Great, so when time travel becomes a thing, I'll add you to the list of people to have a chat with about needing to envision longer term visions for how nefarious people can be. I love that at one point in a not so distant galaxy, er time, that there was a thing of innocence. Now, that innocence can no longer be tolerated and every new thing must have more time invested on how the new thing can be abused rather than…

The only way to never make things that could be misused by nefarious people is never to make things.

Re: Who wants to be tracked?

#236

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

denton-scratch wrote: post #185
angio wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I wish GDPR included a clause stating that presence of the Do-Not-Track header equals to the user not giving consent.

Cookie-consent != tracking consent.

Cookie consent also predates GDPR.

Re: Who wants to be tracked?

#237

Post by MaxikCZ »

kruuuder wrote: post #56
MaxikCZ wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uBlock origin with appropriate filter turner on.

You still have to find filter lists that work though. I use uBlock origin and frequently run into problems where cookie popups are half-blocked - the dialog is no longer visible, but I still cannot interact with or scroll the website. To work around that, I have to deactivate uBlock's cosmetic filters so that I can see the dialog again, then deny cookies. Pretty annoying, I haven't found a setup that fixes that.

Extension named something like Behind The Overlay fixes similar cases for me, it gets rid of anything overlaying the page blocking inputs. Exceptionally effective

Re: Who wants to be tracked?

#238

Post by xigoi »

pie_flavor wrote: post #234
denton-scratch wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and it is bad for everybody Hang on, it's not bad for me . If I visit your site, it's not because I want to participate in some kind of A/B testing (whose results you'll never tell me about). And if your site only works if I happen to have hardware X installed, you don't need analytics to tell you that your site is broken. > European companies need to bug all users and beg for cookies. That's nonsense. If cookies a…

> If I visit your site, it's not because I want to participate in some kind of A/B testing Nobody wants to be part of the A/B testing; everyone wants the polished product that's the result of A/B testing. > And if your site only works if I happen to have hardware X installed, you don't need analytics to tell you that your site is broken. What? Yes you do, or something similar. > If cookies are needed for the correct…

> everyone wants the polished product that's the result of A/B testing.

I'd prefer a polished product that's the result of communicating with users.

Re: Who wants to be tracked?

#239

Post by xigoi »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #223

I'm more curious about the question of 'who wants free content'. Because that's really the question here. Would I prefer everything in my life was free with no strings attached? Obviously. But youtube/news/reddit/facebook/literally any website needs to make money somehow, and non tracked ads pay rediculously lower amounts(90+%). So the real question is, would you trade what is essentially anonymous tracking (literall…

Have you noticed that there are many people making cool stuff for free?

Re: Who wants to be tracked?

#240

Post by snthd »

ff317 wrote: post #160
TekMol wrote: post #15

I have switched one of my sites to cookieless analytics and it is bad for everybody. I can't even say how many users this site has now. It could be the same user coming back over and over. Or many users. How would I know. Yes, I could track a ton of stats about every pageview like user agent, screen resolution etc and then try to stitch it back together. Trying to figure out how many different users there are. But th…

I'm not saying it's easy or perfect, but Wikipedia does tracker-less analytics, and yet still produces https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/all-projects . We do use cookies for part of the analysis, but they're not unique user-tracking cookies. Instead there's one that simply tracks a self-reported datestamp on when the user last visited, which looks something like: WMF-Last-Access=2023-01-01,Expires=Wed, 01 Feb 2023 12:00:…

>which send back info on the hashes of the 10 most recent URLs you've visited on the site, IIRC. None of them are unique tracker hashes for a given user, though.

That seems highly unlikely to never be unique for some users.

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