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Analytics-and-informed-consent.md (2641B)

    

  1. ---
  2. title: Web analytics should at least meet the standards of informed consent
  3. date: 2020-12-04
  4. ---
  6. Research conducted on human beings, at least outside of the domain of
  7. technology, has to meet a minimum standard of ethical reasoning called
  8. [informed consent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informed_consent). Details
  9. vary, but the general elements of informed consent are:
  11. 1. Disclosure of the nature and purpose of the research and its implications
  12.    (risks and benefits) for the participant, and the confidentiality of the
  13.    collected information.
  14. 2. An adequate understanding of these facts on the part of the participant,
  15.    requiring an accessible explanation in lay terms and an assessment of
  16.    understanding.
  17. 3. The participant must exercise voluntary agreement, without coercion or fear
  18.    of repercussions (e.g. not being allowed to use your website).
  20. So, I pose the following question: if your analytics script wouldn't pass muster
  21. at your university's ethics board, then what the hell is it doing on your
  22. website? Can we not meet this basic minimum standard of ethical decency and
  23. respect for our users?
  25. Opt-out is not informed consent. Manually unticking dozens of third-party
  26. trackers from a cookie pop-up is not informed consent. "By continuing to use
  27. this website, you agree to..." is not informed consent. "Install [uBlock
  28. Origin](https://ublockorigin.com/)" is not informed consent.
  30. I don't necessarily believe that ethical user tracking is *impossible*, but I
  31. know for damn sure that most of these "pro-privacy" analytics solutions which
  32. have been cropping up in the wake of the GDPR don't qualify, either.
  34. Our industry's fundamental failure to respect users, deliberately mining their
  35. data without consent and without oversight for profit, is the reason why we're
  36. seeing legal crackdowns in the form of the GDPR and similar legislation.  Our
  37. comeuppance is well-earned, and I hope that the regulators give it teeth in
  38. enforcement. The industry response — denial and looking for ways to weasel
  39. out of these ethical obligations — is a strategy on borrowed time. The law
  40. is not a computer program, and it is not executed by computers: it is executed
  41. by human beings who can see through your horseshit. You're not going to be able
  42. to seek out some narrow path you can walk to skirt the regulations and keep
  43. spying on people.
  45. You're going to stop spying on people.
  47. *P.S. If you still want the data you might get from analytics without
  48. compromising on ethics, here's an idea: compensate users for their participation
  49. in your research. Woah, what a wild idea! That's not very growth hacker of you,
  50. Drew.*