1. Advertising
    y u no do it?

    Advertising (learn more)

    Advertise virtually anything here, with CPM banner ads, CPM email ads and CPC contextual links. You can target relevant areas of the site and show ads based on geographical location of the user if you wish.

    Starts at just $1 per CPM or $0.10 per CPC.

Visitor tracking - how important is your privacy?

Discussion in 'General Chat' started by Anveto, Mar 18, 2013.

0
  1. #1
    How important do you feel it is for companies to respect your privacy when visiting their website?

    Do you prevent sites from tracking you?

    Do you think companies have an interest in protecting your privacy or do they want as much info as they can get?
     
    Anveto, Mar 18, 2013 IP
  2. browntwn

    browntwn Illustrious Member

    Messages:
    8,347
    Likes Received:
    848
    Best Answers:
    7
    Trophy Points:
    435
    #2
    I block almost everything from nearly every site. I use ghostery and think it is a pretty awesome tool. The major benefit, aside from not being tracked, is that nearly all the sites load substantially faster - especially just blocking the facebook/twitter crap.

    DP: (I leave adsense mainly out of curiosity)

    Screen shot 2013-03-18 at 10.43.02 AM.png

    Other sites, I just block all the crap they are trying to install/track me with: (I think the record I have seen is a site trying to install/track with 49 different things)

    Screen shot 2013-03-18 at 10.43.21 AM.png
     
    browntwn, Mar 18, 2013 IP
  3. Blogmaster

    Blogmaster Blood Type Dating Affiliate Manager

    Messages:
    25,924
    Likes Received:
    1,354
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    380
    #3

    In reality, I do not expect anyone to respect my privacy. If they do, great. But let's be real: You are responsible to only give as much information about yourself as you want your worst enemy to know about.


    I know there are people who drive themselves nuts to get their data removed from Pipl etc. but truth is that there are hundreds of sites out there already reselling the data.

    It's an uphill battle I wouldn't even begin to wear myself out fighting.
     
    Blogmaster, Mar 18, 2013 IP
  4. digitalpoint

    digitalpoint Overlord of no one Staff

    Messages:
    38,334
    Likes Received:
    2,613
    Best Answers:
    462
    Trophy Points:
    710
    Digital Goods:
    29
    #4
    Personally, I don't bother trying to block sites from tracking me... The reality is that a site can track you even if you "block" tracking client-side tracking mechanisms simply because you can be tracked on the server-side if they want to. For example, I have some stuff (not this site btw) where I use Google Analytics, but on the server-side... there's no JS or anything else that could be blocked. You don't get some of the JS-specific info (like screen resolution of the user), but all the most important info doesn't need JS.

    In fact, if I wasn't so lazy, I'd make our system automatically do server-side Analytics tracking for those that block the client-side tracking. :)

    And the reality is that on the flip side, as a site *owner* I know we aren't tracking people specifically (like I don't care who you are individually), but the analytics data is used as a whole to make the site better overall for the users. For example, because of analytics, I know that the #1 resolution used by users now is 1366x768 (26% of all users).

    [​IMG]

    Or I can see that Internet Explorer is almost not worth supporting anymore...

    [​IMG]

    So in the end, users that block analytics here, all they really are doing is removing their "vote" for what we should gear our site towards... browser, screen resolution, operating system, etc.
     
    digitalpoint, Mar 18, 2013 IP