Report To The Stakeholders

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Aleph

None of these are nefarious actors, and all of them serve a legitimate business function for an ecommerce site.

Edit:
If you are looking for a return to the days when every web destination wrote 100% of their own code for everything, you are going to find much disappointment these days. The web has gotten infinitely more complex, the expectations of what a site should deliver has had the bar raised considerably, and the volume of traffic and data involved has increased exponentially. You *can* do it all yourself, but (to use a metaphor) re-inventing the wheel can be expensive, and not everyone can afford an automotive engineer, a car production factory, and custom maintenance team for their delivery truck. Especially when the competitors just go buy one off the lot.

Cloudflare and Google are nefarious actors who track and spy on users from site to site. Cloudflare also carries water for various governments and activists who want someone off the Internet. And when I built my new site last year with just HTML and CSS, I found it much easier and more satisfying than keeping up with Wordpress' latest shenanigans. My Wordpress site does just fine without google scripts too now that its hosted in a country with something resembling the rule of law.

My basic rule is that if your site is blank without scripts (or demands that I disable my ad blockers) I click the "back" button. I decide which code gets to execute on my machine. As a customer, I am laying out my conditions; companies can choose whether they want my business.

[Parody]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Cloudflare...

FWIW: (Amazon) Cloudfront and Cloudflare are unrelated services/entities. The previous posts only mentioned Cloudfront. I'm sure you feel the same about both CDNs, but it's good to be accurate.

ObTopic: Looks like SJG is doing OK given the pandemic effects. Hopefully our group will get the new Car Wars to the table soon.

[sir_pudding]

Pandemic effects are less than straightforward for game companies. WotC just valued at $1billion...

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Parody

FWIW: (Amazon) Cloudfront and Cloudflare are unrelated services/entities. The previous posts only mentioned Cloudfront. I'm sure you feel the same about both CDNs, but it's good to be accurate.

ObTopic: Looks like SJG is doing OK given the pandemic effects. Hopefully our group will get the new Car Wars to the table soon.

I think I was confused between cloudfront the AWS style cloud service and cloudflare the man in the middle attack (and blocker of people who take elementary precautions such as VPNs and whitelisting scripts) for half the Internet. I'd expect that cloudfront does shady things with its data too though ...

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Pandemic effects are less than straightforward for game companies. WotC just valued at $1billion...

I'd be interested to know how much of that is tabletop roleplaying gaming. And is that its stock value? Those are hard to interpret since 2008 because there is more money than good places to invest it.

[DeadParrot]

Originally Posted by Aleph

....
Edit:
If you are looking for a return to the days when every web destination wrote 100% of their own code for everything, you are going to find much disappointment these days. The web has gotten infinitely more complex, the expectations of what a site should deliver has had the bar raised considerably, and the volume of traffic and data involved has increased exponentially. You *can* do it all yourself, but (to use a metaphor) re-inventing the wheel can be expensive, and not everyone can afford an automotive engineer, a car production factory, and custom maintenance team for their delivery truck. Especially when the competitors just go buy one off the lot.

To continue with your metaphor, a lot of sites these days seem to have a truck with a Chevy frame, Ford motor, Dodge transmission, a rear end salvaged from an old farm truck, a front clip from Toyota, an Isuzu cab, a Telsa bed, wiring from Jaguar and a Kia brake system. All lovingly assembled by the Prootwaddle Truck Company. Then to keep track of it all, several 'telemetry' systems are added, each from a different company. The end result is a truck that seems more interested in gathering data about visitors then delivering product.

Just hoping that W23 doesn't become another site featuring a Prootwaddle Truck.

[ravenfish]

I'm a simple man. I just think that, if people are making money by selling my personal information, then I'm entitled to ninety percent of it and they should be content with a ten percent agent's fee (yes, I know that probably works out to fractions of a cent, but there is such a thing as a principle).

[Farmer]

Originally Posted by ravenfish

I'm a simple man. I just think that, if people are making money by selling my personal information, then I'm entitled to ninety percent of it and they should be content with a ten percent agent's fee (yes, I know that probably works out to fractions of a cent, but there is such a thing as a principle).

In most cases, they're providing you with a service at no additional cost to you (i.e. you're not being charged to use Facebook or Instagram or various shopping sites and so on). They get money from other sources, which includes information about the users to enable targeted advertising. Does everyone do it in a reasonable and appropriate way? No. But if you want to use those services without them using your information, then you'd have to pay with money either as a fee or through higher prices.

The little corner store that stocks the brands you like, or the local bar or coffee shop that knows what you drink. They're doing the same thing. By knowing their customers they're hoping to provide a service that gets you to keep coming back, and maybe spending more. And they might even aggregate that data if they're part of a chain to get broader information about customer habits. It's not new. It's just on a whole different scale. And you can choose to not participate.

[Aleph]

I will note that the specific services I responded to are not end-user supported. The company implementing them on their site pays for these services (with the exceptions that Google Analytics and Trustpilot come with zero-cost intro tiers that don't offer integration services or support). So while "if you aren't paying for a service, you are the product" is true for a lot of things out there these days, the ones that were under discussion are largely services that one business pays another one for.

Originally Posted by Farmer

In most cases, they're providing you with a service at no additional cost to you (i.e. you're not being charged to use Facebook or Instagram or various shopping sites and so on). They get money from other sources, which includes information about the users to enable targeted advertising. Does everyone do it in a reasonable and appropriate way? No. But if you want to use those services without them using your information, then you'd have to pay with money either as a fee or through higher prices.

The little corner store that stocks the brands you like, or the local bar or coffee shop that knows what you drink. They're doing the same thing. By knowing their customers they're hoping to provide a service that gets you to keep coming back, and maybe spending more. And they might even aggregate that data if they're part of a chain to get broader information about customer habits. It's not new. It's just on a whole different scale. And you can choose to not participate.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Farmer

In most cases, they're providing you with a service at no additional cost to you (i.e. you're not being charged to use Facebook or Instagram or various shopping sites and so on). They get money from other sources, which includes information about the users to enable targeted advertising. Does everyone do it in a reasonable and appropriate way? No. But if you want to use those services without them using your information, then you'd have to pay with money either as a fee or through higher prices.

But you are paying! We are talking about online stores, and their business is selling things to visitors. And if I walked into a store and it tried to photograph my face and my ID, stick a tracker in my pocket, and rummage through the receipts in my wallet I would walk out and possibly file charges.

In Canada, there are very strict laws limiting data collection and sharing. These companies ignore them or make up various excuses that they have enough money to spend on lawyers and lobbyists to keep in business.

[Aleph]

First, there are two different things being talked about with regards to online tracking, and they are different situations. Leaving the various social media sites aside, I'm just trying to clarify that it is common, expected, and in many cases, required to use third party components on an ecommerce site.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

But you are paying! We are talking about online stores, and their business is selling things to visitors. And if I walked into a store and it tried to photograph my face and my ID, stick a tracker in my pocket, and rummage through the receipts in my wallet I would walk out and possibly file charges.

In many cases, most of the same things are happening in a physical store that isn't part of a huge chain. They're paying for Vodaphone or some similar service to process your credit card, they're paying a security company for the alarms and cameras they use to protect the store, they're paying for someone to manage a rewards card program, they might be paying for an accounting or inventorying analysis company to help in stocking, etc.

None of the systems I've specifically cited do anything like trying to track receipts in your wallet from other stores, install trackers that follow you to third party sites, store your facial recognition information, or any of the other hyperbolic examples given.