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by stephenr 3707 days ago
> So every site and every product on the internet has this dark pattern.

Not every site/product on the internet uses an abusive analytics platform, hell not all of them use analytics at all.

With sites visited in a browser, an extension can be used to block access to abusive services such as GA. There is no Ghostery for the terminal.

I have no issue with them wanting to collect usage information. I opt-in to Debian's package usage tracking.

If I still used Homebrew, I would have a huge issue with them sending information about what packages I install to Google.
1 comments
TheLogothete 3707 days ago
How is GA abusive? The webmaster has to explicitly permit data sharing with google. That is, the webmaster is asked if s/he wants to share data with google and the options are unchecked by default.

GA prohibits the use of personally identifiable information.

Additionally the webmaster can tell google to not store IP info, which the webmaster has chosen to this in this case.

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stephenr 3707 days ago
> The webmaster has to explicitly permit data sharing with google.

Abusive to users. Google's whole reason for offering free analytics is to build better advertising profiles.

> Additionally the webmaster can chose to not send IP info to google,

I must have missed the memo where Google invented a way to make HTTP connections with no client IP.

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TheLogothete 3707 days ago
This has gone full circle and honestly is quite irritating at this point.

People say that Google uses GA data for advertising, I say that this is not the case and then you just chose to ignore that. So I'm just gonna ask directly - can you show some evidence suggesting Google uses GA data for building advertising profiles or did you pull this opinion out of your ass?

Because as someone who analyses marketing and advertising data, I can tell you that I strongly believe they do not use GA data in this way. 1) They have no need to, they have better data; 2) This data is unreliable; 3) GA prohibits the use of personally identifiable information; and most important of all:

THE WEBMASTER CAN CHOSE TO NOT SHARE IT WITH THEM. If this webmaster went out of his way to tell google not to store IP information, I think it is pretty safe to assume that they did not opt-in to share the data with google AT ALL.

Apart from these technical reasons, using GA data in the way you think they do opens a regulatory risk of EPIC proportions.

But if you have some evidence to suggest that they do use it for "advertising profiles", please do share it. But if you can't and you formed this opinion because you are prejudiced, I would like to see you admitting it.

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tremon 3707 days ago
THE WEBMASTER CAN CHOSE TO NOT SHARE IT WITH THEM

No they can't, unless that choice means that the data never arrives at Google's servers.

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TheLogothete 3707 days ago
Of course they can. When you sign up for GA, you get asked

Do you want to share data with google to improve our products?

Do you want to pool aggregated data for benchmarking?

Both are unchecked by default.

Or do you think that google will access the data without permission? In which case, what do you base your opinion on?

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