Show HN: Google Analytics alternative with the most generous free tier (beamanalytics.io)

GDPR compliance is not to be confused with privacy.

You don't have Data Protection Officer (even if you have one, you ought to publish their details). Neither does Plausible.

Your privacy policy lacks details, e.g.: where you process data and what is data retention.

You are incorporated in not an Adequate Country, meaning you face challenges becoming GDPR-compliant without additional measures that span beyond SCCs. Similarly to Fathom (BC is not under PIPEDA, hence is not adequate).

Privacy-friendly? Probably. GDPR-compliant? No.

The simple fact of sending PII such as IP addresses to a third-party for something that can trivially be done via analyzing existing server logs (without introducing a third-party) already puts this on shaky grounds from a GDPR point of view regardless of everything else.

Is there more documentation on "custom events" (listed on the pricing page)? I assume this is just an API I can arbitrarily ping. Can that be used for cohort/funnel analysis instead of a /page; e.g. for a single-page app?

First, there's a Javascript snippet you add to your site to set up Beam. That Javascript snippet loads additional Javascript from beamanalytics.b-cdn.net. If you add the Beam provided Javascript to your site, every time a user visits your site, their IP address will be shared with beamanalytics.b-cdn.net. If the user didn't consent to sharing their IP address with beamanalytics.b-cdn.net, you do not have a lawful basis[1] for sharing the user's IP with beamanalytics.b-cdn.net.

Second, there's this notion that because Beam hashes IP address that "anonymizes" the data[0][2]. According to GDPR, this is actually "pseudonymisation"[3]. If you know what hash function is used, you can still tie back the hashed data to the original user. Pseudonymized data still meets the GDPR definition of personal data[3] so applying this hash doesn't actually do anything in terms of helping with GDPR compliance.

  [0]: https://beamanalytics.io/data
  [1]: https://gdpr-info.eu/art-6-gdpr/
  [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35539476#35546091
  [3]: https://gdpr-info.eu/art-4-gdpr/

That’s why I still prefer analytics solutions that can be self hosted.

In fact, you don't even provide a demo page of your own analytics, so how exactly is a anyone supposed to judge whether or not you're the "best", not to mention be comparable to something like Plausible, which has always shown its own analytics as a demo experience.

There's definitely a market for this kind of analytics (many similar products have been launched in the last 2 years), but you should probably rethink your strategy a little bit.

At the moment, the site feels quite bland (maybe it is a side project, I don't know) and you should perhaps focus more on explaining how you achieve certain things (E.g. How exactly are you compliant?).

"Proxying Beam Analytics through Cloudflare"

"Use proxying to avoid adblockers distorting your data"

How does bypassing content/tracking/ad blockers fit into your privacy narrative?

Is it because, working for a big company, there's a sales target on my back and you want to use that to extract the maximum tolerable pricing from my group, just because you can?

Is it because my use case is so complicated you think that you need to offer me value-added services that help you achieve the margins you want?

Why is it that you, even just as an individual with a startup idea, have already fallen into this kind of pricing behavior? Where did you learn to do this? Do you already have VC-backed sales people telling you to do this?

Why is this such a common practice?

Maybe that's why I use other services that at least treat me the same as everyone else.

(1) Have the picture of your face BIGGER. Then SMILE and be HAPPY, even a little enthusiastic.

(2) Don't drop your voice volume at the end of sentences. Speak VERY clearly: Enunciate the words clearly. E.g., write out the narration and practice reading it.

(3) Be sure the room and microphone give good sound quality. Have the sound volume HIGH, TOO high, and let the users reduce the sound volume at their end if they wish.

(4) If you know a women who would do you a favor, have her do the narration. Write out carefully a clear narration you want her to say. Better still if she is reasonably pretty, not glamorous but professional and still pretty.

(5) There is a lot of numerical data on your screen that is unreadable to 80+% of your target audience. If some text or data is unreadable, then reformat it or just omit it from the presentation. Generally don't put anything on the screen that is unreadable. In simple terms, use a large font 100% black on a white or at least light background.

(6) Early in the video there is a graph. There are two curves that are easy to see, but there is annotation on the two axes that is unreadable due to being too small and not dark enough. For such annotation, make it big, black, and easy to read.

(7) You may be assuming too much for your best targeted audience, the one with nearly all your candidate customers. E.g., I'm doing a startup, a Web site, have the code running as intended, likely will want some analytics, but so far have had no occasion to find out just what "Google Analytics" is. So, I'm a candidate customer, but to sell to me something or someone will have to give me at least a 101 level introduction to Web site analytics -- it is to your advantage for the part of your audience that needs the 101 introduction for that someone to be you.

https://clarity.microsoft.com/pricing