WingNews logo WingNews
top | item 23871204

(no title)

seemslegit | 5 years ago

Half of HN personally responsible for doing exactly this kind of thing for a living, shifting in their chair uncomfortably... I umm... just doing my job...

discuss

order

hairofadog|5 years ago

I had a conversation with an exec at a company I worked for in which they expressed pride that our website doesn't track users like those other sites, and I had to break it to them that we heavily used and relied upon every Google ad and analytics product (the latter of which they were obsessed with) and had Facebook "Like" buttons all over the place.

It's easy to go about your daily work and forget about the ways in which you're opted into various data-collection frameworks.

Regarding comments pointing out the Facebook integration on Medium, I think it's okay for people to criticize a system from within the system.

hkt|5 years ago

> I think it's okay for people to criticize a system from within the system.

Amen: there'd be virtually no critics left if people couldn't.

ProAm|5 years ago

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." -Upton Sinclair

wackget|5 years ago

That's not really an excuse. A developer might be asked to implement Facebook tracking code, but a conscientious developer will ensure the browser's "Do Not Track" setting is respected.

It's as simple as:

    if (!navigator.doNotTrack) { // Tracking code }

npteljes|5 years ago

It's not this simple when managements explicitly asks you not to do this, and takes it as sabotage if you still do it.

Kaze404|5 years ago

Unfortunately enabling Do Not Track just makes you more easily trackable.