Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics • Hacker News Board

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#581

Post by chrismorgan » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 6:06 PM UTC

63 wrote: post #330

jccalhoun wrote: post #299

I am amazed at how non-techy people use the internet. I teach college and I will sometimes have students go to some web site. I am amazed at how few use adblocking and just accept all the ads and popups and overlays and crap. Even more than that, I will see them using something like google docs and google will put an overlay for some new feature and they don't click the X to close it. They just type away with that ov…

Even with an ad-blocker, there are still huge cookie and "join our email list" banners. Banner blindness is just the way things go for most people. Fun little anecdote, in high school I had to work at a pizza joint but the screens where they showed the orders had a gui that looked just like a website. Thanks to banner blindness, I missed important info all the time because it was in places that brain had internalized…

There are cosmetic filter lists that filter out most of that stuff, e.g. Fanboy’s Annoyances.

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#582

Post by dang » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 6:10 PM UTC

platz wrote: post #207

Adblocking an immoral tragedy of the commons type move. Psychologically, It's not unlike NIMBYism or residents of a gated community that figured out how to avoid paying their taxes.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28365335.

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#583

Post by asiachick » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 6:12 PM UTC

Me, I don't block Google Analytics intentionally, I run Ublock Origin to get rid of ads in general and it happens to block Google Analytics.

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#584

Post by skinkestek » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 6:13 PM UTC

FalconSensei wrote: post #516

erdii wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean something like AdNauseam? https://adnauseam.io/ Edit: it's an adblocker that is supposed to click on EVERY ad that it blocks.

I think it wouldn't be about the ads, but the visit tracking. Like, block GA from seeing your visits on trash sites, but allow when it's a high quality post/content/source, so we skew the numbers for high quality content

That's actually very interesting.

Is there any extension that blocks analytics selectively?

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#585

Post by muffinman26 » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 6:15 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #569

muffinman26 wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US there's actually an FCC requirement that television channels air news. From https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/public-and-broadcasting : "virtually every station has an obligation to provide news, public affairs, and other programming that specifically treats the important issues facing its community." The details are specific to the license, but almost every station is required to air at least an hour of news…

Does the requirement mean air news during prime time though, or can they do it at times when most people are not even able to watch TV?

It's unclear, because the exact details are specific to the license and therefore may vary from station to station. My local television stations usually air the news at 11, which is after primetime.

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#586

Post by marvion » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 6:16 PM UTC

wodenokoto wrote: post #125

turbinerneiter wrote: post #15

There is a German movie about the system that is used to gather TV ratings. It's a special box that some users get which reports what they are watching. Small sample size goes into a big statistic (not sure how accurate the portrayal of the system in the movie is). These boxes are given to the people who pay the German public TV fee, which excludes i.e. students (they don't have to pay) and some other groups. This gr…

Is it the Simpsons or Seinfeld where in one episode one of the characters gets a Nielsen box that is used for measuring tv viewership and they can’t leave the house for fear of shows being canceled if they’re not home to watch it.

And ALF in 1987 S02E05

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#587

Post by mdoms » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 6:18 PM UTC

turbinerneiter wrote: post #15

There is a German movie about the system that is used to gather TV ratings. It's a special box that some users get which reports what they are watching. Small sample size goes into a big statistic (not sure how accurate the portrayal of the system in the movie is). These boxes are given to the people who pay the German public TV fee, which excludes i.e. students (they don't have to pay) and some other groups. This gr…

There's a Family Guy episode where Peter does the opposite.

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#588

Post by noir_lord » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 6:19 PM UTC

ok123456 wrote: post #387

cm2187 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't modern internet-connected TV boxes snitch on what people are watching? Surely we don't need a sampling anymore? Just thinking that the elderly population is probably the least likely to use those boxes (though I am not even sure of that), whereas they constitute the (dying) core of traditional TV viewership.

And the tech savvy people never connect their "smart" tvs to the internet.

My "smart" TV has one job - show the signal fed to it via HDMI from my linux box.

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#589

Post by smilbandit » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 6:20 PM UTC

turbinerneiter wrote: post #15

There is a German movie about the system that is used to gather TV ratings. It's a special box that some users get which reports what they are watching. Small sample size goes into a big statistic (not sure how accurate the portrayal of the system in the movie is). These boxes are given to the people who pay the German public TV fee, which excludes i.e. students (they don't have to pay) and some other groups. This gr…

digital idiocracy

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#590

Post by nebula8804 » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 6:22 PM UTC

WorldMaker wrote: post #545

cm2187 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't modern internet-connected TV boxes snitch on what people are watching? Surely we don't need a sampling anymore? Just thinking that the elderly population is probably the least likely to use those boxes (though I am not even sure of that), whereas they constitute the (dying) core of traditional TV viewership.

Ironically, modern streaming apps have far more accurate numbers than anything Nielsen ever cooked up sampling people, but Netflix made the precedence that they should be "secret sauce" and not shared publicly and most of the "Streaming Wars" diaspora today are following that policy/precedent. We're in something of a worst of both worlds situation where Nielsen has an increasingly small number of viewers where tradit…

I have been exploring ways to avoid sending this data to them. To start: using an instance of Pi-Hole and running all your apps will remove some tracking from them.

Following this up with paying for your subscription but pirating all the shows might help remove you from the cycle completely.

I understand the second point is not realistic for the majority of people but I wonder if in the future we might have an easy to use version of Pi-Hole that most people can just flip on and strip a large chunk of tracking from the apps.