1---
 2title: "Privacy-respecting analytics"
 3date: 2023-03-06T12:23:00-05:00
 4cover: ./cover.png
 5categories: ["Technology"]
 6tags: ["Privacy", "Web"]
 7draft: false
 8toc: false
 9---
10
11For a long time, I was so vehemently opposed to analytics on personal websites
12that I condemned people using privacy-respecting systems like [Plausible] on
13their blog, shouting about mUh PrIvAcY and saying that these platforms only
14boosted the bloggers' ego and they would end up writing for their readers rather
15than personal enjoyment. I'm realising that I was kinda dumb 🤔
16
17[Plausible]: https://plausible.io/
18
19One of my clients recently asked me to add analytics to the website I created
20for them. I said yes and asked whether they had a preference as to which
21analytics system. They said no, they just wanted to see how many people were
22using the website and whether they were actually looking at the menu and store
23pages. I decided to set them up with [Umami] because it has a very simple UI,
24it's not affiliated with Big Tech™ companies, [it's GDPR-compliant,](umami-gdpr)
25and the script is only 2 KBs.
26
27[Umami]: https://umami.is/
28[umami-gdpr]: https://umami.is/docs/faq
29
30Analytics on a business's website is a no-brainer. Business websites should be
31pleasant, ergonomic, and useful for their customers and analytics do assist with
32that goal. But what about on personal websites? The big reason Google Analytics
33is so often condemned is because of Google; you bet your ass they're aggregating
34all the data they harvest from their collective properties and associating that
35information with your visitors' profiles (yes, even if they don't have a Google
36account) to improve their advertising engine. Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, etc. do
37exactly the same thing with all of their like/share buttons. They're ingesting
38as much data as they can to feed their ad systems and I don't want to further
39their mass surveillance of the internet.
40
41The privacy issues with analytics primarily apply to the big providers that
42aggregate everything across their customers' properties in order to surveil as
43many people as possible. Systems like Umami are different. The minimal data
44that's collected is anonymised and stays in-house, on your (preferrably)
45self-hosted server. When you really give it some thought, there's nothing
46inherently wrong with knowing how many visitors your site has, what pages
47they're viewing, and what website they came from.
48
49I enabled Umami on my website shortly after coming to this realisation and [made
50the analytics page public.][public]
51
52[public]: https://umami.secluded.site/share/7PNXq2e8/Secluded.Site
53
54The referrers section is fascinating when you bump the period from "Today" to
55"All time". There are some unusual search engines, a couple onion addresses,
56another of my own websites [(scratchanitch.dev)][sai], and even some personal
57ones. After seeing other individuals link to my website, I had the idea to use
58GitHub's [Code Search] feature to poke around and see [where else it was
59mentioned.][cs-results]
60
61[sai]: https://scratchanitch.dev/
62[Code Search]: https://github.com/features/code-search/
63[cs-results]: https://github.com/search?q=%22secluded.site%22&type=code
64
65A suprising number of people seem to be referencing my _[Vim as a Markdown
66Editor][vme]_ post. I haven't thought about that post since I wrote it, much
67less updated it. Taking a look at Umami indicates that it's by far my most
68popular one. Maybe I should have another look at it and see if there's anything
69that needs to be improved ...
70
71[vme]: https://secluded.site/vim-as-a-markdown-editor/
72
73Knowing that there are people visiting my site and that some of the things I've
74written are useful is, frankly, quite encouraging. That's why I'm writing this
75post. That's part of what inspired my next one and it's why I intend to start
76writing more. I do enjoy writing, but the idea of tossing something I've spent
77hours on into the void of the internet isn't exactly motivating.
78
79As long as it isn't causing problems, I don't believe "boosting the blogger's
80ego" is inherently bad. Encouragement can be quite good 🙂