If you didn’t know, pretty much any website or mobile app has, is, or will use Google Analytics to track their users. Until today, I did too. But I’ve decided to stop using it on sullivan.io.

The Good

Let me explain what I get from Google Analytics. It tells me incredible things. How my users found the website (direct, social media, search etc). How much time someone spends on a page. What pages they view. What country they’re from. What browser they use. Who their internet provider is. Whether they’re returning or new.

It’s all fantastic information. I understand more about users, what topics are popular. It helps me deliver the most valuable content. This is why so many admins use it. Pure insight, nothing malicious.

You might feel fine about a website getting this info from you. And I agree with you. Giving a website owner some insights will likely result in a better experience.

The Bad

So why stop using it?

Google Analytics funnels all this information to one central place: Google. They have all the info across all sites that use Google Analytics. It’s like having a stranger peaking over your shoulder any time you hit a website or use an app. They know exactly what you did on (virtually) every site you visit. And they write it down in a database, stored forever. And that is horrifying.

Protect Yourself

Browser Extensions

To protect my privacy, I use a couple browser extension that block tracker scripts. These extensions prevent other trackers too (Facebook, ad networks, malware). If privacy is your thing, I implore you to use these extensions.

• uBlock Origin
• Ghostery

Use an iPhone

Apple is the only option for a privacy oriented person. While the ad-based, information tracking model of the internet works for Google, Apple is offering an alternative: paying a premium for privacy. Using an iPhone won’t solve all your problems, but it gives you real options to block trackers in the browser. iOS limits software providers from fingerprinting your device. And this will only get better as time goes on.

Pi-hole

Something I’d love to try at home is a Pi-hole. The Pi-hole is a physical device that you install on your home network. It blocks these trackers and ads before they even get to your device. When someone is on your wifi, they are protected. It’s takes some technical know-how, but an interesting solution.

Protect your Users

For website administrators out there, dropping Google Analytics is a scary proposition. It’s so easy to setup on your site and the insights are valuable. But there are promising alternatives.

You always have the option to log the data yourself. There are technical issues sure, but it also forces you to ask the question: What user data do I care about? Instead of logging everything through Google Analytics, focus on what is most important, ask the right questions, dive deep. This is best practice for anyone delivering product to the world.

If you don’t feel like rolling out a logging/database solution of your own, there are some quick wins from privacy oriented analytics companies. Here are a couple I like:

• Cloudflare: A great service to optimize your website, they offer some very basic analytics by default.
• Simple Analytics: It’s not free, but that’s because they don’t sell your user data to ad networks!

There’s still a lot I can do to protect myself and users of this site. But this is a start. Thanks for reading!