[HN Gopher] No, Safari 14 does not block Google Analytics
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No, Safari 14 does not block Google Analytics
Author : TomAnthony
Score : 101 points
Date : 2020-06-24 19:31 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.simoahava.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.simoahava.com)
| tengbretson wrote:
| Not sure what to make of this article, but I've become very
| distrustful of articles with titles that take the form:
|
| "No, <thing being said by a group I want to smear> is not <doing
| thing>"
|
| At best it's patronizing, at worst it's used as cover for
| outright lying.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I'm go glad I'm not the only one.
| TomAnthony wrote:
| I take your point, but the phrasing makes sense here as it is
| refuting two recent articles that were making a strong (and
| verifiably incorrect claim).
| TomAnthony wrote:
| The two articles that are discussed in this post have both been
| featured on HN in the last 24 hours [1][2].
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23629918
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23612140
| dang wrote:
| We've merged those.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23612140 is the thread.
| stonogo wrote:
| Why not?
| egypturnash wrote:
| Realistically, it probably should.
| masswerk wrote:
| This (the reports this article is answering to) is really a good
| example for the state of information and information spread on
| the Web. It does not just start with "fake news" and manipulative
| messages, it' really about this kind of reporting, which is
| setting the standards - and it's mostly down-hill beyond those
| outlets. (This isn't specific to any domain or topic.
| Journalistic standards are mostly down to where they have been in
| the 1920s, with most of the lessons learned forgotten.)
| shawkinaw wrote:
| Ironically: https://ibb.co/NFvkbxw
| aloukissas wrote:
| Bummer. It looks like I won't be giving up Brave for a while,
| since it blocks GA and every other tracker.
| kingo55 wrote:
| Not entirely correct, Brave allows its own (and others') first
| party trackers. I'd suggest using ublock origin for greater
| control.
|
| https://twitter.com/BraveSampson/status/1266034313142861824?...
| t0mas88 wrote:
| The author is very naive on what Google Analytics does:
|
| > That doesn't mean there might not be cookies set on google-
| analytics.com. I would imagine there are some that are used for
| debugging and monitoring purposes, for example.
|
| Google links GA data to their DoubleClick and Adwords cookies. So
| it's not just "debugging", they're collecting data and using it
| to create audiences in Adwords and the DoubleClick products. As a
| user it's only available if you pay for Analytics 360, but Google
| gets the data either way even if you don't get to use it.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| As someone who has wrestle with GA and GTM regularly, I think
| it's fair to say that the author (Simo Ahava[1]) is the
| preeminent authority on how they work, and his blog is
| generally more useful than the official documentation Google
| provides.
|
| 1: https://www.simoahava.com/about-simo-ahava/
| TomAnthony wrote:
| I think you have misunderstood what he is saying with that
| sentence.
|
| He is not speaking about "GA data", but is discussing the very
| precise issue of whether HTTP 3rd party cookies, set on cross-
| domain requests to google-analytics.com, being blocked has an
| impact on the the functionality of GA.
|
| Those cookies being in contrast to 1st party cookies set by
| GA's javascript code.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| This is not correct; you can see in Google's documentation and
| legal documents that the GA service is distinct from
| DoubleClick and Tag Manager, although these three services are
| often implemented together (in fact Google recommends this).
|
| GA places both first and third party cookies but only needs
| first party cookies to do basic reporting.
| bad_user wrote:
| That's irrelevant. If a cookie isn't shared between websites
| then the analytics software can't easily track you between
| websites, which is what ITR helps with.
|
| Also the publisher has to willingly share that data for use by
| Adwords. And in Europe at least sharing that data is illegal
| without user consent due to GDPR.
|
| Create a new Google account, go to Google Analytics, register a
| new domain and you'll see those options off.
| saagarjha wrote:
| > I'm disappointed that the Privacy Report has such clumsy
| wording. To use terms like block, prevent, and tracker can lead
| to confusion, as the aftermath of WWDC showed, unless they are
| clearly defined in the report itself.
|
| Yeah, this part really needs some cleaning up. It's hard to
| explain exactly how ITP works, but it is important to note that
| Safari is not trying to block the tracker from loading but
| instead detect its ability to track you and take appropriate
| action.
| KorfmannArno wrote:
| "uses on-device machine learning to identify trackers"
| geerlingguy wrote:
| Not much to contribute to the conversation (other than I would be
| happy if something like Pi Hole were built into my computer
| directly), but I find it interesting how frequently the top 5-10
| stories on HN are basically top level responses or refutations to
| stories that were in the top 5-10 earlier in the day.
|
| I have to admit that I ended up in this situation with one of my
| posts earlier this year--I just find it interesting that it seems
| to be happening more frequently lately.
| lostgame wrote:
| We truly are living in an area where the lines between truth
| and marketing are very slim.
| nix23 wrote:
| No problem, just use unbound and a blocklist:
|
| https://www.tumfatig.net/20190405/blocking-ads-using-unbound...
| rootsudo wrote:
| Or integrate them with little snitch. :D
| dang wrote:
| It may have been happening more frequently but the overwhelming
| reason for such things is randomness. It's just also the most
| boring reason.
| xrisk wrote:
| NextDNS does basically the same thing and is pretty easy to
| use.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| This. Someone else is hosting it which to some is a pro while
| others is a con, but it's been great at replacing my finnicky
| pihole instance, and supports DoH and DoT natively.
| m463 wrote:
| there is SO much stuff that safari doesn't block.
|
| Get firefox + umatrix and just see how much stuff goes on.
| arkitaip wrote:
| Firefox on Windows has the same problem with it's Enhanced
| Tracking Protection. I've just decided to disable it all
| together* and just use uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger.
|
| * Actually, you can't just disable it. You have to select the
| "custom" preset and then disable all the "protections".
| bad_user wrote:
| I use uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger and Firefox's tracking
| protections. I don't see why not all three.
|
| There's actually a lot that Firefox blocks in strict mode. On
| iOS for example it works like a poor man's ad blocker as it
| breaks ad exchanges. And it blocks Google Analytics too.
| beervirus wrote:
| What's the problem with enhanced tracking protection?
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(page generated 2020-06-24 23:00 UTC)