I've always added analytics scripts on websites I worked on. It was second nature for me. Then when I got my own start up, I didn't just add regular analytics but one that tracks mouse movements so you can watch sessions back like a video [0].
I told a friend about my start up and she jumped on it immediately. I opened the tool and watched her interaction. Then I told her "oh so you opened the dev tools" She immediately ended the session. "How did you know? That's creepy". It was the first time I've actually felt like these tools invade privacy.
Yeah, we include it in our terms and condition and privacy page, but I don't think users truly grasp how those tools work. I understand that all analytics tools provide this feature now, but its always creepy to know someone can watch what you are doing.
Everyone knows stores have security cameras. But if you called them up and said 'I saw you pick up the chips' they wouldnt have a good feeling.
Everyone understands websites use analytics and tracking, but people dont want to be reminded of it. Which is why people hate those FB ads which exactly match what you searched for 24 hours ago.
I think there's a very interesting duality forming around privacy. It seems like most people don't really care if they're being filmed, or if their data is being slurped up six ways from Sunday, as long as it's aggregated and going through automated systems. But as soon as it feels like an actual person is looking at individual behavior, it's creepy (which is, of course, always a possibility, but plausible deniability is a powerful thing).
the people doing the "analytics" (surveillance) like their privacy too, because they are doing creepy stuff and don't want people to know it. And even if they aren't doing creepy stuff, the data might be used that way in the future (profile building, psychological tricks, personalized pricing, sharing behavior with others, etc)
> It seems like most people don't really care if they're being filmed, or if their data is being slurped up six ways from Sunday
For the majority of people I don’t think it’s true that they don’t care, but rather that they don’t know, don’t understand the implications, or don’t have the luxury of being able to do anything about it.
In the instances where I was able to have a longer discussion with someone to really explain what’s going on, they did care. Even if they previously said they didn’t.
HN comments really can't beat the spectrum stereotypes...
But seriously, the parent comment isn't saying the technical fact a browser can see your cursor's coordinate is unnerving. They're saying the experience of being reminded of this fact is unnerving.
Technically, every time you take a bus ride the driver can just decide to crash the vehicle and kill the passengers and himself. This fact itself isn't unnerving -- it's just how buses work. But if there were a poster on the bus reminding passengers of that, that'd be quite unnerving.
As a semi-savvy programmer, but with little experience in web-dev, I'm actually a bit ignorant of what a site can measure -- client side -- versus collect server side.
Presumably it's a simple matter to send something back to a server, but I've really never thought about the mechanisms involved.
I've always added analytics scripts on websites I worked on. It was second nature for me. Then when I got my own start up, I didn't just add regular analytics but one that tracks mouse movements so you can watch sessions back like a video [0].
I told a friend about my start up and she jumped on it immediately. I opened the tool and watched her interaction. Then I told her "oh so you opened the dev tools" She immediately ended the session. "How did you know? That's creepy". It was the first time I've actually felt like these tools invade privacy.
Yeah, we include it in our terms and condition and privacy page, but I don't think users truly grasp how those tools work. I understand that all analytics tools provide this feature now, but its always creepy to know someone can watch what you are doing.
[0]: https://idiallo.com/blog/spying-on-your-user
Everyone knows stores have security cameras. But if you called them up and said 'I saw you pick up the chips' they wouldnt have a good feeling.
Everyone understands websites use analytics and tracking, but people dont want to be reminded of it. Which is why people hate those FB ads which exactly match what you searched for 24 hours ago.
I think there's a very interesting duality forming around privacy. It seems like most people don't really care if they're being filmed, or if their data is being slurped up six ways from Sunday, as long as it's aggregated and going through automated systems. But as soon as it feels like an actual person is looking at individual behavior, it's creepy (which is, of course, always a possibility, but plausible deniability is a powerful thing).
it's not a duality at all. the people don't know.
the people doing the "analytics" (surveillance) like their privacy too, because they are doing creepy stuff and don't want people to know it. And even if they aren't doing creepy stuff, the data might be used that way in the future (profile building, psychological tricks, personalized pricing, sharing behavior with others, etc)
> It seems like most people don't really care if they're being filmed, or if their data is being slurped up six ways from Sunday
For the majority of people I don’t think it’s true that they don’t care, but rather that they don’t know, don’t understand the implications, or don’t have the luxury of being able to do anything about it.
In the instances where I was able to have a longer discussion with someone to really explain what’s going on, they did care. Even if they previously said they didn’t.
Nice! It shouted "Bot" when I ran this in the console
for (let i = 0; i < 1000; i++) { document.querySelector(".button")?.click(); }
I made something very similar 2 weeks ago, re the upcoming OpenAI phone.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48040327
This brings me back to the glory days of StumbleUpon. Highly recommend.
thats pretty creepy. I find it unnerving that they know exactly where my cursor is.
would be creepiest if your cursor moved somewhere related to what you were saying outloud.
the capability is there, your local hardware determines how seamless it would be.
So does every advertiser and data broker in the world
huh? javascript can see the x,y coordinates, so many things would be impossible without that, how is that unnerving?
"Oh man, Call of Duty can read my exact mouse coordinates, how unnerving" said nobody ever...
This demonstrates a surprising lack of empathy.
It’s unnerving because people don’t like being watched.
People aren't being watched...
HN comments really can't beat the spectrum stereotypes...
But seriously, the parent comment isn't saying the technical fact a browser can see your cursor's coordinate is unnerving. They're saying the experience of being reminded of this fact is unnerving.
Technically, every time you take a bus ride the driver can just decide to crash the vehicle and kill the passengers and himself. This fact itself isn't unnerving -- it's just how buses work. But if there were a poster on the bus reminding passengers of that, that'd be quite unnerving.
You might like Pointer Pointer. It's pretty funny. https://pointerpointer.com
(It might not work on touch screens.)
I'm getting a PR_END_OF_FILE_ERROR when I try to open the page in Firefox on Linux.
As a semi-savvy programmer, but with little experience in web-dev, I'm actually a bit ignorant of what a site can measure -- client side -- versus collect server side.
Presumably it's a simple matter to send something back to a server, but I've really never thought about the mechanisms involved.
Very fun, I enjoyed seeing what it would react to.
Heads up: there's audio. It does add something.
I enjoyed playing with this. Wild how much it knows.
Looks like it got HN’d to death
Hmmm. Clever and a little spooky!
This is a great POC about how you give up privacy just using the web. This data is bought and sold and more and used against you every day
I am not sure what I am looking at. It's telling me things which I expect any website to know via basic javascript. What am I missing?
That you’re not the target audience.
kind of weirded me out lol...
Another one like this -
https://sinceyouarrived.world/taken