Google spyware on FreeBSD Web site?

[Brett Glass]

At 01:39 PM 12/6/2012, Jason Slagle wrote:

>Sell out?

Yes, sell out.

Some sites sell out to Google to get money. Others do it to get 
cheap analytics instead of using open source analytical tools 
(which seems odd in the case of FreeBSD, because it is after all a 
open source project).

>If you don't want the GA script to load on the site, are you 
>volunteering to write the software to allow them to accomplish those goals?

Again, there's no need to reinvent the wheel. There are plenty of 
good analytical tools out there.

>Also, under the default settings, Google Analytics does NOT set 
>any doubleclick cookies, or as far as I've ever been able to tell, 
>ANY cookies related to ad tracking.

Yes, Google Analytics does track users. According to the Wikipedia article at

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Analytics

"Google Analytics (GA) is a service offered by 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google>Google that generates 
detailed <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistics>statistics about 
the visits to a <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Website>website. The 
product is aimed at 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_marketing>marketers as 
opposed to <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webmasters>webmasters and 
technologists from which the industry of 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_analytics>web analytics originally grew."

It goes on to say that

"GA can track visitors from all 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referrer>referrers, including 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engines>search engines, 
display advertising, 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay-per-click>pay-per-click 
networks, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_marketing>e-mail 
marketing and digital collateral such as links within 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF>PDF documents."

>Additionally, the cookies it sets are all first party - they will 
>be from the FreeBSD domains, and will not be readable by others.

Again, according to the above cited article:

"Due to its ubiquity, Google Analytics raises some privacy 
concerns. Whenever someone visits a website that uses Google 
Analytics, if Javascript is enabled in the browser then Google 
tracks that visit via the user's 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_address>IP address in order to 
determine the user's approximate geographic location."

So, it's not just cookies that one needs to be concerned about.

It's also worth remembering that Google surreptitiously hacked 
Safari to allow it to spy on Safari users, and denied doing so 
until it was caught. See, for example,

http://www.pcworld.com/article/250213/googles_safari_tracking_dilemma_reality_check.html

In my opinion, The FreeBSD Project should be on the side of 
security, privacy, transparency, and good ethics. This means not 
invoking corporate spyware scripts from its Web site.

--Brett Glass