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Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

appleinsider.com

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Re: Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

#71

Post by user5994461 »

hkai wrote: post #61

Personally I am not at all concerned when my data is used for marketing. Instead, I like learning about products tailor-made for me. By privacy I understand not sharing data with the public or with the oppressive regimes when it may lead to harassment, firing or arrests of people. But using my data to sell me some watches or bike parts? I'm in.

What about using your data to send you malware and to steal money from your bank account for example?

I've had to use safari on Mac. Sites are constantly trying to auto download dmg files (executables on mac) of malware. The most common ad is saying your mac is broken and needs to download an antivirus (that's fake and trying to get you to download a virus). Top google results for "download vlc" or equivalent search is pointing to fake websites distributing malware.

All of this is the result of ads, analytics and mac detection.

I've tried to setup ublock origin on safari but apple blocked safari extensions and doesn't allow to replace safari fully with another browser.

Re: Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

#72

Post by saagarjha »

TomAnthony wrote: post #50

This article is incorrect. There does not appear to be a change between Safari 13.1 and Safari 14 for how it handles GA. I have tested it myself. With Safari 13.1 Apple made a change [1] to their Intelligent Tracking Prevention that blocks all 3rd party cookies for cross site resources. The only change in Safari 14 appears to be that it reports which domains have had cookies blocked. The Google Analytics beacon is st…

I haven't looked too deep at the code for this (stupid shared cache…) but yes, it's easy to see that this is just a repackaging of the resource load statistics database (~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari/Data/Library/WebKit/WebsiteData/ResourceLoadStatistics/observations.db), which has historically been populated using the notion of "prevalence" and "tracker-like behavior" that has been described by the many WebKit blog posts. Looks like there's nothing new under the hood, and no specific singling out of Google Analytics.

Re: Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

#73

Post by JimDabell »

dimator wrote: post #48
PudgePacket wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The value in DDG is the userbase and brand.

I'm not convinced of that. Apple is in a position to invent a search engine, make it real pretty (if not as powerful), and slap it as the default on iOS Safari. Throw in some claims that "it's the most private" so the apple fan base eats it up, and I think apple would take a significant chunk of iOS searches overnight.

It seems like an obvious win, but Apple are terrible when it comes to building web services. They don’t have the capability to pull this off in-house and they don’t seem willing to bring in leadership from their competitors to improve on that front. An acquihire or partnership seems to be the only way Apple could get this done successfully.

Re: Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

#74

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

jesterson wrote: post #29
nwellnhof wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's another suggestion: Learn how to configure Google Analytics properly. https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1011397?hl=en "If all [data sharing] settings are OFF, your Analytics data is only used to provide and maintain the Analytics service."

Weill, this only "works" for you if you trust google. Given multiple security incidents in the past I am certainly not one of those people.

What security incidents?

Of all tech companies I'd feel most secure with Google being the stewards of my data.

Re: Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

#75

Post by Twisell »

saagarjha wrote: post #69
Twisell wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could someone translate this statement to something a layman might understand? (I'm not a web dev nor am I following SEO news closely enought) Do you imply that Apple is putting up a misleading interface in the new version of Safari where GA appear blocked while it actually isn't? That's a pretty bold assertion and the provided link is irrelevant on that. Again only looking for more information maybe I didn't get you…

No, it's that Safari is blocking third-parties under the same policies that it laid out earlier.

Original commenter stated that

> The Google Analytics beacon is still sent by the browser

This is what I'd like some clarification about.

Wether policy changed or if it is just a UI change is another subject. Do they actually block GA or not? And if not does the UI mislead users to think otherwise?

Re: Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

#76

Post by saagarjha »

Twisell wrote: post #75
saagarjha wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's that Safari is blocking third-parties under the same policies that it laid out earlier.

Original commenter stated that > The Google Analytics beacon is still sent by the browser This is what I'd like some clarification about. Wether policy changed or if it is just a UI change is another subject. Do they actually block GA or not? And if not does the UI mislead users to think otherwise?

I'm not an expert on this either, but as far as I understand WebKit does not block beacon requests when you click on links. However, it does clear third-party cookies as it did before, which is described in the blog post. So what the commenter above is saying that this is showing instances where third-party cookies are being blocked, not where beacon requests are (which WebKit isn't interfering with). I haven't looked at the code for this in detail yet but from what I saw it seems that the implementation matched with this.

Re: Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

#77

Post by bengale »

baddox wrote: post #58
eecc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yes they do, and why would you want to break network caching to spy on your users? You can always add some little js to ping your server (logs! Again!) or a non-cacheable tracking pixel.

Sure, you can do that. Google Analytics is merely a free version of that service.

Free to you, the user pays with their data. This is apple giving the user the option not to subsidise the website operator.

Re: Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

#78

Post by Twisell »

saagarjha wrote: post #76
Twisell wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Original commenter stated that > The Google Analytics beacon is still sent by the browser This is what I'd like some clarification about. Wether policy changed or if it is just a UI change is another subject. Do they actually block GA or not? And if not does the UI mislead users to think otherwise?

I'm not an expert on this either, but as far as I understand WebKit does not block beacon requests when you click on links. However, it does clear third-party cookies as it did before, which is described in the blog post. So what the commenter above is saying that this is showing instances where third-party cookies are being blocked, not where beacon requests are (which WebKit isn't interfering with). I haven't looke…

And such beacons are then expected to be anonymous because no cookies data could be send along.

If any tracking oriented company wanted to overcome this for nefarious reasons they wouldn't be able to do that without explicit help from the visited website who would then become legally liable. (For example by including in the beacon call a hash of personal identifier like IP or e-mail disrespecting RGPD and such).

Is that a good enough layman understanding of the stakes here?

Re: Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

#80

Post by sergeykish »

Twisell wrote: post #78
saagarjha wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not an expert on this either, but as far as I understand WebKit does not block beacon requests when you click on links. However, it does clear third-party cookies as it did before, which is described in the blog post. So what the commenter above is saying that this is showing instances where third-party cookies are being blocked, not where beacon requests are (which WebKit isn't interfering with). I haven't looke…

And such beacons are then expected to be anonymous because no cookies data could be send along. If any tracking oriented company wanted to overcome this for nefarious reasons they wouldn't be able to do that without explicit help from the visited website who would then become legally liable. (For example by including in the beacon call a hash of personal identifier like IP or e-mail disrespecting RGPD and such). Is t…

TomAnthony described beacons but even without javascript any server you have requested gets IP, OS, Browser (usual server log data). That is ads, trackers, CDNs, images, stylesheets. For google (besides what is usually blocked) it is at least ajax.googleapies.com, fonts.googleapies.com
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