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Tell HN: $ echo 127.0.0.1 www.google-analytics.com | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts

13 points by MichaelCrawford ↗ HN
Also:

   127.0.0.1 ssl.google-analytics.com
   127.0.0.1 www.hosted-pixel.com
Unlike many I don't object to advertising. What I object to is analytics.

I'm completely cool with webmasters who analyze the log files of their own servers, but I regard it as morally reprehensible that analytics services correlate visits between multiple websites. Consider the problem faced by closeted homosexual evangelical Christians, for example.

There are lots of ways to ferret out the hostnames of web bug servers, however the "user-friendliest" way is to use a really, really old version of Safari.

Open the "Activity" window then visit a few of the more-popular websites. The kind of websites that your Mom likes to hang out on.

The activity window lists the URLs and file size of each resource that goes into a web page. The web bugs will commonly have huge, long URLs full of query parameters, with images being either 43 or 60 bytes. Javascript "source code" will typically be one single byte of whitespace.

"Don't Be Evil" indeed.

8 comments

[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 21.3 ms ] thread
paulhauggis
yeah, well, google has made it difficult for 3rd-party analytics tools to collect query data so analytics is really the only thing you can use.
MichaelCrawford
There are other search engines than google. Yes it is true that I don't get accurate data about google referrals but even so I have a pretty good idea as to what queries are getting referrals in general.
MichaelCrawford
I'm completely cool with you knowing what queries I used to give you a search engine referral. Unfortunately google was the respondent in a lawsuit by someone who objected to that.

My gripe is that you can use analytics to discover my personal traits.

For example today I felt great joy that Starbucks was playing many of my favorite songs - some that I had not heard in years. How did they know? I always pay cash!

But then I speculated that they're logging my computer's MAC ID then somehow using that as a key, with the eventual result that "Red Right Hand" by Nick Cave and the Black Seeds starts playing.

ljk
> For example today I felt great joy that Starbucks was playing many of my favorite songs - some that I had not heard in years. How did they know? I always pay cash!

Startucks doesn't just play a set playlist from the radio?

MichaelCrawford
I don't actually know how they get their playlist, but I expect it's chosen in part by professional DJs, and in part by analyzing coffee sales.

That is, while I may enjoy hearing Red Right Hand that doesn't mean I bought a coffee in response.

However the dreary playlists of ClearChannel FM radio was the direct result of determining what music produced the most ad revenue. In the long run though I stopped listening to the radio; at home I listen to recorded music or else I listen to whatever a wifi spot is playing.

I would be very interested to know whether all the starbucks locations play the same songs, or whether they're individually tailored to each location. I speculate that it's something in between, that is the locations have a choice of one of several different playlists.