
Official KISSmetrics Response to Data Collection Practices - joshuacc
http://blog.kissmetrics.com/official-kissmetrics-response-to-data-collection-practices/
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bbatsell
Their explanation of the universal cookie ID issue is rather silly. If you're
a client of Kissmetrics, your visitors have a cookie scoped to your domain
with the visitor's universal Kissmetrics ID. All of the database segregation
in the world won't prevent any two or more Kissmetrics clients from collating
visitor data on that universal ID, sent in every header on every pageview.
Whether any clients are actually doing that, I have no clue. But claiming that
permuting that universal ID into client-specific ones rendered when the
clients view data actually protects visitors from said collation is just
wrong.

See Wired's screenshot here:
[http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/epicenter/2011/07/Screen-S...](http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/epicenter/2011/07/Screen-
Shot-2011-07-29-at-11.52.29-AM.png)

~~~
rubeng
I don't see what's silly about the explanation considering it's about
efficiency and performance. As a KISSmetrics customer I can tell you the focus
is on funnels and key data; not on an internal cookie ID so that we can
collude with other companies.

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rhizome
So you'd decline to collude with another company who approached you? What if
they offered to pay?

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rubeng
Of course not. Customer data isn't something I would ever share.

Companies that choose to do so will do it regardless of whether they're
directly paid for it. It's not a tech problem and it's not something they need
a 3rd party vendor for.

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jedberg
I know Hiten personally, and I know that Kissmetrics operates in a most
ethical fashion.

I would trust them over most any analytics company any day.

It's a shame that this meritless lawsuit even exists.

~~~
mtogo
Trying to prevent the deletion of cookies used to uniquely identify and track
their customers' users is ethical?

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qeorge
Yeah as far as I'm concerned, the cross-site tracking thing is a straw man.

They used evercookie-ish methods to track people who don't want to be tracked.
That's unethical, full stop.

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jforman
If the report "significantly distorts our technology and business practices,"
why are they making such significant changes to their technology and business
practices as a result?

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jedberg
To assuage folks who don't understand technology and will assume they are
guilty until they "make big changes".

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jforman
I understand technology, and I'm pretty skeezed out by their use of Etags...

Also, if they truly think they're innocent, why wouldn't they just educate
their userbase? Seems odd to make such drastic architectural changes just
because of a perceptual problem.

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jedberg
Ah, but it is all about perception. The same thing happened at reddit a few
times.

The mob decided someone was guilty, we investigated, found absolutely no
wrongdoing. Told the community, they didn't care. They would only be happy
with swift, visible action.

~~~
jforman
Comparing the relatively thoughtful discussion on this topic among the web
development community to the reddit mob is not particularly fair or accurate.

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jedberg
I would have to say you're naive for thinking the two are much different.

Any group, no matter how civil and educated, can dislove pretty quickly into
mob mentality.

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jforman
Your cynicism is not well borne out on this message board.

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ericd
This board is a very rare exception on the internet, and even it descends into
its own form of lynch mobbery (with a more elevated tone than most lynch
mobs).

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jeremymims
Hiten is a standup guy, a friend to startups everywhere, and a class act all
around. I look forward to him kicking their asses in court.

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slowpoke

      Mr. Soltani also claims that it is somehow improper to use
      any technology other than browser cookies to track website
      activity. In fact, countless online companies, including
      other major analytics providers, use a variety of different
      technologies to provide these services, including the
      persistent technologies Mr. Soltani targets in his paper. 
    

That's not a justification for doing it too. It's merely a lame excuse for
unethical behavior.

Also, I don't care if the guys at KISSmetrics are nice, kitten-loving jolly
good fellows - that has absolutely zero relevance to the case at hand.

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rhizome
They don't deny recreating cookies.

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dangrossman
Is that illegal now?

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nostromo
No, but unethical for most applications, don't you think?

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richcollins
_These articles are based entirely on a paper by Ashkan Soltani, who works
closely with the lawyers who filed these cases, and who published his paper on
the same day that the first lawsuit was filed._

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plinio_silva
So what? Does that automatically make everything he exposed false?

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ericd
It makes his objectivity suspect.

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rhizome
How does Hiten's working for KM affect _his_ objectivity?

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ericd
He's not posing as an objective third party.

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rhizome
That's a strange way to establish someone's credibility!

