Ethical Analytics In Web Design

I hope to tell you about the latest push I am having. I am hoping to boost my ethical credentials. This may sound as legitimate as anyone saying this and working on a goal that, by all accounts, you are measured by your peers on. So, I will say that I am striving to lead a fairer practice here, in Harrogate, as a web designer.

Why The Sudden Start?

Last night, at around 10pm, I found out that France and Austria have outlawed Google Analytics.

Yes, the industry leader Google Analytics was sidelined. The apparent reason for being kicked in to touch, from what I understand, was that Google Analytics violated GDPR Laws, and therefore the promised privacy of individuals.

GDPR is a group of EU Laws that safeguard the individual’s privacy rights in European states – so the fact that Google Analytics, the industry leader in site metrics, has been deemed illegal is massive.

What Did Google Analytics Do, Exactly?

Google Analytics was the Google owned app that would tell you who visited your website. This information was used by marketeers and admins to target campaigns.

I think the reason Google Analytics got in hot water was that they would show you the location and the demographic for the visitor and their servers were based outside of the EU. Google were showing you a bit too much about what the visitor was doing.

This was taken as a breach of GDPR, despite cookie banners, in France and, I believe, Austria, too.

What I Use: An Ethical Alternative To Google Analytics

I admit I was getting ready for an early night when I found out this news – not much sleep was achieved.

So, when did Noah build the Ark? It was before the flood. I took advantage of tech guys’ sleep patterns I and put my eggs in to an analytics package that is far more privacy orientated, forgetting my time with Google Analytics. This means my visitors can still find out how many people are visiting the site, just you won’t know the visitors shirt size, as a crude example.

The package I went with was made by Fathom.

The Benefits Of Using Fathom

So, three reasons why your friends might dig them too!

1. You don’t need to display those pesky cookie notices as Fathom don’t use cookies, nor do they track invasive data.
2. They offer simple, straight-forward website analytics.
3. Fathom are focused on privacy for website visitors, they don’t track them, save their personal information, or need it to be profitable.

Summing Up

So, the change has started – I am implementing the code to the sites I run – this will enable me to monitor how many people visit a website, and what country they are visiting from. I am happy with that.