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I'd like to know: what are HN's opinions and/or solutions to this dichotomy?
* Anonymized and/or aggregated data
* Behavior tracking via cookies (in app vs marketing?)
* Referral/Affiliate tracking1) Don't go overboard. GA is one thing. GA plus twenty other obscure analytics cookies and scripts is another. If your site looks like [1], there is 0 chance of ever being on my white-list for ads.
2) Just be honest and transparent. You don't need a big "WE USE COOKIESSSSSS" banner, but a short little message along the lines of "We use GA to help develop a better experience for you. All data is in aggregate, and not identifiable. Please consider white-listing our website if you would like to participate in making this website even better".
My 2c: 1) Don't go overboard. GA is one thing. GA plus twenty other obscure analytics cookies and scripts is another. If your site looks like [1], there is 0 chance of ever being on my white-list for ads. 2) Just be honest and transparent. You don't need a big "WE USE COOKIESSSSSS" banner, but a short little message along the lines of "We use GA to help develop a better experience for you. All data is in aggregate, a…
My 2c: 1) Don't go overboard. GA is one thing. GA plus twenty other obscure analytics cookies and scripts is another. If your site looks like [1], there is 0 chance of ever being on my white-list for ads. 2) Just be honest and transparent. You don't need a big "WE USE COOKIESSSSSS" banner, but a short little message along the lines of "We use GA to help develop a better experience for you. All data is in aggregate, a…
Thanks for the tips. How do you feel about anonymized only vs aggregated. For example: in-app (where user info is available to you) do you carry out any behavior tracking, a/b testing, etc?
Ideally when I visit a site I'd like to see minimal tracking by default with an opt-in model. If a site tracks the bare minimum by default and unobtrusively asks me if I'd be okay with sharing a little bit more (or participating in certain testing, etc.) I will generally say yes. Showing me you care enough to let me opt-in vastly increases my trust in you as a provider. Opt-in is best, opt-out is not ideal but acceptible if clear and easy, no option = no whitelist.
Also, I think if you are asking as a privacy conscious startup, you should consider taking a step back and really asking yourself how much you really need to track. What is essential vs. what is nice to have? Anything that you implement that is non-essential is another step away from being privacy conscious, in my books at least.
We're living in a time where the default seems to be to track as many data points as possible, then figure out if they are relevent/useful. This is backwards. Implement the absolute minimum and see how it goes. A month down the road you might realize you desperately need to see X metric, so you implement X tracking. However, and more likely in my opinion, is that you realize that X metric adds minimal value to you - yet it tracks significantly more PII from your customers. It's all about balance.
If you really need to use a third-party, I'd prefer one where you pay for the service (MixPanel, etc) rather than a "free" one like Google Analytics. At least the paid one has less incentive to use the data for their own purposes while the whole point of Google Analytics (and the reason for it being free) is to provide data for Google's advertising business.
For analytics try to use self-hosted solution or even rely on your existing logs (if a feature is hitting endpoint X and you want to know how frequently it is used you can just grep for that URL). If you really need to use a third-party, I'd prefer one where you pay for the service (MixPanel, etc) rather than a "free" one like Google Analytics. At least the paid one has less incentive to use the data for their own pu…
For analytics try to use self-hosted solution or even rely on your existing logs (if a feature is hitting endpoint X and you want to know how frequently it is used you can just grep for that URL). If you really need to use a third-party, I'd prefer one where you pay for the service (MixPanel, etc) rather than a "free" one like Google Analytics. At least the paid one has less incentive to use the data for their own pu…
Do you have an opinion about situations where 'tracking' is really what is needed. For example, keeping track of a referral from a partner, so that you can pay them for converted customers?
If its just a flat rate per conversion, this could be accomplished with minimal (if not no) PII collected from the customer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have an opinion about situations where 'tracking' is really what is needed. For example, keeping track of a referral from a partner, so that you can pay them for converted customers?
Are you paying a flat rate per conversion or a flex rate based on customer spending or some other metric? If its just a flat rate per conversion, this could be accomplished with minimal (if not no) PII collected from the customer.