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UBlock defaults to blocking Google Analytics tracking

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Re: UBlock defaults to blocking Google Analytics tracking

#31

Post by eli »

nfoz wrote: post #27
eli wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uBlock might stop you. It's certainly consistent with their philosophy to block all analytics, even homegrown and not shared across sites.

I think the parent comment is referring to the idea that the web server, by necessity, is aware of a client connection. Webserver logs reveal a lot of information.

That might be useful for fingerprinting visitors but, perhaps ironically, it's much worse than javascript & cookies for actually seeing big picture trends on your site. There are many, many bots that request files off your server but only a relative handful execute javascript.

Re: UBlock defaults to blocking Google Analytics tracking

#32

Post by maxmcd »

ArtDev wrote: post #26

Maybe it will balance out all of the false positives from bots? I get so much fake traffic, I don't know the real numbers anyhow.

Fake traffic? I have access to a few mid/high-traffic sites on GA. We do a lot of event tracking, so unless these are very sophisticated bots I imagine I would pick up on a lot of bot traffic.

Mind expanding on the fake traffic you're getting?

Re: UBlock defaults to blocking Google Analytics tracking

#33

Post by at-fates-hands »

DangerousPie wrote: post #22
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 don't think this is such a big issue. Only a small minority of people use uBlock. Whatever data you measure on the 90% of your visitors that don't block GA can, most likely, be extrapolated to the remaining 10% as well. I'm a lot more concerned about the revenue I am losing due to the decrease in ad views/clicks than I am about a slight decrease in GA hits...

>> Whatever data you measure on the 90% of your visitors that don't block GA can, most likely, be extrapolated to the remaining 10% as well.

Agreed.

I think we as tech people tend to assume everybody is as tech savy as we are - when in fact, it's not even close. Also, when you talk about an aging baby boomer population who didn't grow up with Facebook and Instagram, they could care less about being tracked.

Re: UBlock defaults to blocking Google Analytics tracking

#34

Post by teamhappy »

conphill wrote: post #23
bhouston wrote: post #2

More here: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/e6707fe8b155cc92da1cb... This screws my efforts to try to optimize my site for increased traffic and to work towards longer user sessions. This hurts my website.

I agree. I understand that people have issues with being retargeted by ad platforms and hate seeing the same ad follow them around, but I don't really seem any downside to users being tracked by 3rd party platforms like Google Analytics. Platforms like GA, don't track first party information and anonymize who you are with a randomly generated ID. This is the only thing that makes your visit unique from the rest. I do…

> How do you expect businesses to get insights into what features users like or dislike in their product?

Collect the data you need yourself. If you don't want to do that (it's really easy) then the data can't be that useful/important to you. Another way would be to, you know, ask your users.

What bugs me is that people seem to think it's okay to send my data to another company (usually many, in all kinds of different jurisdictions) without even considering to ask for my consent. That's not nice, is it?

You could ask me, on first visit, if I'm okay with you sending my (anonymous) data set to Google. It's really not that hard, is it? Just ask. But you don't. Not only does nobody do that, I'm pretty sure most people don't even consider doing it. That's the most offensive part.

So what am I left with? I could stop using the WWW all together, I suppose, or, I could block Google Analytics and the likes before hand, and then, if I feel comfortable doing it, opt in to sharing my data because I like your service and I want it to improve.

You and Google don't ask for my consent, but Ghostery does. That's why I (have to) use it.

---

bhouston said: "This type of stuff should be opt-in." (blocking GA, that is)

I hope the people reading my comment can appreciate the irony.

[By the way, the hypothetical guy I'm yelling at — not you]

---

One hour later. Can't make this up.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/01/healthcare.gov-sends-p...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8920294

Re: UBlock defaults to blocking Google Analytics tracking

#35

Post by thaumaturgy »

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…

Once upon a time people and web hosting companies knew how to parse access logs into beautiful analytics systems with software like JAWStats (http://www.jawstats.com/).

It's really a shame that Google Analytics has become the only way to handle traffic analysis.

Re: UBlock defaults to blocking Google Analytics tracking

#37

Post by michaelbuckbee »

maxmcd wrote: post #32
ArtDev wrote: post #26

Maybe it will balance out all of the false positives from bots? I get so much fake traffic, I don't know the real numbers anyhow.

Fake traffic? I have access to a few mid/high-traffic sites on GA. We do a lot of event tracking, so unless these are very sophisticated bots I imagine I would pick up on a lot of bot traffic. Mind expanding on the fake traffic you're getting?

Here's the most prominent one that's happening now: http://www.incapsula.com/blog/semalt-botnet-spam.html

Basically referrer spam.

Re: UBlock defaults to blocking Google Analytics tracking

#38

Post by chmars »

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…

Can't you simply use your server logs?

Re: UBlock defaults to blocking Google Analytics tracking

#39

Post by j4kp07 »

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…

Sure you can. Quit using Google. You think they are the only with a tool that provides these answers? Also, I think you are wrong: If people understood how FB, Twitter and Google can track your moves across websites, then I believe most WOULD want this.

Re: UBlock defaults to blocking Google Analytics tracking

#40

Post by rgj »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #35
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…

Once upon a time people and web hosting companies knew how to parse access logs into beautiful analytics systems with software like JAWStats ( http://www.jawstats.com/ ). It's really a shame that Google Analytics has become the only way to handle traffic analysis.

Parsing access logs in 2015? Really? You mean those logs that are cluttered with bot traffic and that only have IP addresses instead of real user sessions, and do not contain valuable information about for instance exit pages, banner clicks, page load times, and so on?
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