💾 Archived View for danq.me › posts › i-dont-want-your-data captured on 2023-12-28 at 15:05:18. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

I don't want your data

2023-12-07

The web loves data. Data about you. Data about who you are, about what you do, what you love doing, what you love eating.

...

I, on the other end, couldn't care less about your data. I don't run analytics on this website. I don't care which articles you read, I don't care if you read them. I don't care about which post is the most read or the most clicked. I don't A/B test, I don't try to overthink my content. I just don't care.

...

Manuel Moreale

Manu speaks my mind. Among the many hacks I've made to this site, I actively try not to invade on your privacy by collecting analytics, and I try not to let others to so either!

My blog is for myself first and foremost (if you enjoy it too, that's just a bonus). This leads to two conclusions:

If I'm the primary audience, I don't need analytics (because I know who I am), and
I don't want to be targeted by invasive analytics (and use browser extensions to block them, e.g. I by-default block all third-party scripts, delete cookies from non-allowlisted domains 15 seconds after navigating away from sites, etc.); so I'd prefer them not to be on a site for which I'm the primary audience!

I've gone into more detail about this on my privacy page and hinted at it on my colophon. But I don't know if anybody ever reads either of those pages, of course!

Links

My article: "Making WordPress Fast (The Hard Way)", which mentions my distaste for analytics

My repost of Brendan Dawes' "Permission to Write Stuff", in which I stress the importance of myself as the primary audience of my blog

My privacy page

My colophon