<!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"/> <meta content="pandoc" name="generator"/> <meta content="Zhiming Wang" name="author"/> <meta content="2015-09-25T12:30:25-07:00" name="date"/> <title>Removing Google Analytics from this blog</title> <link href="/img/apple-touch-icon-152.png" rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed"/> <meta content="#FFFFFF" name="msapplication-TileColor"/> <meta content="/img/favicon-144.png" name="msapplication-TileImage"/> <meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" name="viewport"/> <link href="/css/normalize.min.css" media="all" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/> <link href="/css/theme.css" media="all" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/> </head> <body> <div id="archival-notice">This blog has been archived.<br/>Visit my home page at <a href="https://zhimingwang.org">zhimingwang.org</a>.</div> <nav class="nav"> <a class="nav-icon" href="/" title="Home"><!--blog icon--></a> <a class="nav-title" href="/"><!--blog title--></a> <a class="nav-author" href="https://github.com/zmwangx" target="_blank"><!--blog author--></a> </nav> <article class="content"> <header class="article-header"> <h1 class="article-title">Removing Google Analytics from this blog</h1> <div class="article-metadata"> <time class="article-timestamp" datetime="2015-09-25T12:30:25-07:00">September 25, 2015</time> </div> </header> <p>There was a lengthy discussion about Peace and ad-blocking in <a href="http://atp.fm/episodes/136">Accidental Tech Podcast Episode 136</a>. There were many lessons to learn from the story; as a side effect, it also made me reconsider Google Analytics on this blog.</p> <p>I've been a user of ad-blocking for years and have little to no moral burden.<a class="footnoteRef" href="#fn1" id="fnref1"><sup>1</sup></a><a class="footnoteRef" href="#fn2" id="fnref2"><sup>2</sup></a> I do hate being tracked online, even by Google (to whom I entrust so much of my personal information), although it's certainly better (I believe) than the host of shadier ad networks out there. Given this, why should I force something even I hate down my visitors' throats? Google Analytics is nice at telling me how many page views I got and where they came from, and I don't earn any money from it so I shouldn't feel guilty, but (1) it does install a tracker, and (2) I care very little about traffic anyway.</p> <p>At this point the decision is pretty clear. I'm simply removing Google Analytics from this blog. This makes the blog entirely cookie-free and JS-free (except for the very occasional JS embed).</p> <div class="footnotes"> <hr/> <ol> <li id="fn1"><p>I do try to support websites I frequent, e.g., through <a href="https://arstechnica.com/subscriptions/">Ars Premier</a>.<a class="footnotes-backlink" href="#fnref1">↩︎</a></p></li> <li id="fn2"><p>Although it's easy to be a user of ad-blocking, I fully understand the moral (or even legal) burden of being the developer of an ad-blocker, let alone being the "face" of the ad-blocking industry; therefore, I understand and respect Marco's decision of pulling Peace.<a class="footnotes-backlink" href="#fnref2">↩︎</a></p></li> </ol> </div> </article> <hr class="content-separator"/> <footer class="footer"> <span class="rfooter"> <a class="rss-icon" href="/rss.xml" target="_blank" title="RSS feed"><!--RSS feed icon--></a><a class="atom-icon" href="/atom.xml" target="_blank" title="Atom feed"><!--Atom feed icon--></a><a class="cc-icon" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" target="_blank" title="Released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license."><!--CC icon--></a> <a href="https://github.com/zmwangx" target="_blank">Zhiming Wang</a> </span> </footer> </body> </html>