Yesterday I realized my primary browser in Windows was Firefox and was curious what other readers were using. This morning an interesting comment came in from a Hmm reader who points out that he uses Firefox primarily for security reasons. This is why many cite Firefox as being inherently better than IE, but Firefox hasn’t been without its share of security woes.

And then the reader mentioned another reason he uses Firefox that I hadn’t given much thought.

Hmm reader David curiously writes (emphasis mine):

I can conveniently control (and in most cases this means deny) javascript usage, cookie usage, and ad displays on a per website basis. It really enhances my browsing experience. A good example (TDavid) is that I can let makeyougohmm and sitemeter run javascript while denying javascript to the third party sites linked here that don’t respect my privacy (newsgator, google-analytics, and googlesyndication.)

The newsgator rating at the end of posts is very new and its quite perceptive of David to notice that. I had planned to write about why I added that a couple days ago — as a test, mind you, which most things tried out here are exactly that — and see what readers thought about it.

You can find the Newsgator star rating at the bottom of this post near the share/bookmark section. On David’s comments I decided to revisit the NewsGator privacy policy (and implications) for using this star rating code.

I didn’t see anything there that made me think the service was invasive. Somebody please link to something that will educate me otherwise.

Therefore, I remain puzzled how the use of Newsgator star rating does not respect reader privacy? Interestingly enough I added that as a feature so that Hmm readers could rate the posts they liked/disliked daily on a 1 (bad) to 5 (best) rating quickly, painlessly and easily without leaving the post and so it could help me determine the week’s best posts for the new Hmmcast that is created and shared every Friday. I want readers to have a stake in being able to help choose the week’s most Hmm-worthy posts. Sometimes by using third party stuff it makes the process even more open than using first party code.

I’m a programmer as many realize and it’s not terribly complicated to create a rate this post function that wouldn’t rely on any third party code. One of the big concerns with rating scripts is preventing ballot stuffing. Some combination of IP/cookies/sessions/user data is usually employed to counteract someone just sitting there and voting over and over again. Every rating script I’ve ever seen that doesn’t tie ratings to a user login is trivial to bypass.

I could also use my own stats tracking (and do, actually) but there are some good reasons to use third party tracking when it comes to advertisers and for transparency when sharing stats publically. The most obvious of which is there can be no argument of cooking the books on my part. If the Site Meter stats say Hmm did 10,000 visitors you know we did at least that much. I’d be one of the first people to complain about the accuracy of third party stats, but there is one thing that cannot be argued: third party stats are independent data. If I write that we did 100,000 visitors and yet Site Meter showed we did 1,000 readers can draw their own conclusions about who is full of it. I like using third party information for that very reason. It can add credibility.

But using third party tools at a price to user privacy is a concern which I don’t take lightly. Therefore, my question for readers (and David too if he wants to come back and share additional information of course): is this a legitimate concern?

Google Analytics is pretty handy information for a webmaster but David raises an interesting question there as to if the use of this is invasive to some readers. Please use the comments/trackbacks to discuss with me specifically what concerns readers about Google Analytics. I would be willing to remove the code if enough readers were concerned about the use of that here. I go by server stats for most things anyway, but I tried out Google Analytics to see what they offered and how the service works like I do many things.

Wouldn’t be opposed to removing Google Analytics. And definitely wouldn’t be opposed to removing the Newsgator rate the post.

As for Google Syndication? Does David mean the contextual ads? Do those bother your privacy? I’m probably opening up a privacy can of worms here, but how do Google contextual ads invade any reader’s privacy? Yes, they might use the IP address to return localized ads, but you know what I think of that? So freaking what. I don’t care if people know “about” where I am located because it’s right in (most of) my bios. [Update: and it’s been listed on our business contact page for years]

I’m not interested in doing something that creates some huge privacy concern but at least with the information I have as of this writing, I’m not removing Google Adsense for privacy reasons. Sorry. If that loses any readers because I make a stand on that one but I’m going to have to see some empirical and very evil privacy implications related to Google Adsense before those ads go away.

And BTW, you can get 99% of the content from this blog in the RSS reader without any third party javascript code.

Fear not, I
I’m not afraid of my online tracks being followed, my search keywords being tracked, my sales, music, movies being watched so worthwhile and interesting recommendations can be made, etc, because you know what? That might be helpful and save me time and open my mind to content I might not otherwise find. Where I start to become concerned about privacy is when Google or Newsgator or Company X shows up at my home and starts offering to sell me stuff directly based on my internet activity. If I don’t invite them to my home, I don’t want to see them there. That’s the type of privacy that concerns me.

As for showing up at my business? Heck, Google hasn’t showed up there yet except to deliver Adsense checks. Compared to these asswipes who try to get us to renew our domains through their registrar service. They send what looks like a renewal bill for our domain. It’s extremely deceptive and the only way they get this address is by illegally mining WHOIS.

Just as David points out you can use plenty of tools to stop this third party tracking from happening, so use them if you are all that concerned. Me? I want people to be able to know when I’m at their website and that it’s not some guy in Russia pretending to be me. Look at my IP, see that it’s coming from/near Puyallup, WA 98375, I really do not care. I also want to know when some blogger is showing me stats so that I might be interested in advertising that the numbers are somewhat accurate and can be independently verified.

I realize some people are concerned by Google’s success and worried about the power they wield, but I have to see something really truly evil before I change trains. Disclaimer: I own GOOG stock, so I am not just writing here with no skin in the game. If I thought they were truly evil, I’d be selling the stock now, not sitting here writing this. Do I think Google does some stupid things? Yes. Do I like everything they have done? No. Do I think they could have privacy problems in the future? Yes.

What do you think? Are privacy concerns for any of these third party programs legitimate? Google Analytics, Google Adsense and Newsgator?

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