kain88-de
commented
4 years ago Why do we use google analytics by the way?
Closed lilyminium closed 4 years ago
kain88-de
commented
4 years ago Why do we use google analytics by the way?
orbeckst
commented
4 years ago Since the beginning we had analytics on all our sites. In principle the idea was to learn how users use the site. In practice we haven't made a lot of use of it. But for instance, it will be interesting to see if people start shifting to the User Guide instead of docs. @lilyminium observed that people typically filter through the getting started pages on the website and then end up in the UG.
Looking at webpage visitors is one of the few ways in which we can measure interest. Others are paper citations, downloads, subscribers on the lists, number of developers, number of contributors. All of these measures are imperfect. However, when having to demonstrate (e.g., for grant applications) that this project has impact then you really want to have as many ways as possible to provide a multi-faceted view.
orbeckst
commented
4 years ago Maybe NumFOCUS has some advice?
orbeckst
commented
4 years ago Reading through the termly privacy policy as an example, it might be useful to have a bunch of contact addresses such as "privacy@mdanalysis.org" or "info@mdanalysis.org". Or at least have a mailinglist that allows public posting and that is read by core devs (similar to mdnalysis-conduct@googlegroups.com).
orbeckst
commented
4 years ago Example policy generated by termly – I might not have clicked all the right things. I struck out a few things that we probably don't need. I added a section that includes Google Analytics, GitHub pages, Cloudflare and Algolia Search (modelled after termly's policy 4. WHO WILL YOUR INFORMATION BE SHARED WITH?
I left in termly's "request form to remove data" at the end. Not sure if we want to keep this. Ultimately we don't keep any data; only 3rd party providers.
Last updated June 12, 2020
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orbeckst
commented
4 years ago termly also suggests a Cookie policy and an opt-in banner for cookies, i.e., a cookie consent manager. In order to initially block cookies until visitors consent, one has to disable cookie collection as described here: https://help.termly.io/support/solutions/articles/60000666989-how-to-block-third-party-cookies
orbeckst
commented
4 years ago kain88-de
commented
4 years ago What about an alternative to google analytics?
orbeckst
commented
4 years ago I am open to it.
No GDPR necessary sounds like a good thing. I assume it will still give us basic usage stats.
Does anyone think we need the fine grained data from Google Analytics? Perhaps “collecting just because we can and because Google makes it easy” is not the best approach to privacy….
On Jun 16, 2020, at 9:45 AM, Max Linke notifications@github.com wrote:
What about an alternative to google analytics?
Like https://www.goatcounter.com/ https://www.goatcounter.com/
richardjgowers
commented
4 years ago Yeah I’d sooner turn it off / use something self contained than Google.
On Tue, Jun 16, 2020 at 18:32, Oliver Beckstein notifications@github.com wrote:
I am open to it.
No GDPR necessary sounds like a good thing. I assume it will still give us basic usage stats.
Does anyone think we need the fine grained data from Google Analytics? Perhaps “collecting just because we can and because Google makes it easy” is not the best approach to privacy….
On Jun 16, 2020, at 9:45 AM, Max Linke notifications@github.com wrote:
What about an alternative to google analytics?
Like https://www.goatcounter.com/ https://www.goatcounter.com/
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kain88-de
commented
4 years ago So I read a bit more. Even with goatcounter we would need a GDPR notice. But no cookie consent banner (yeah). As long as we want to have some type of analytics we will need a privacy notice. A different software alternative to google analytics is unfortunately a different discussion.
About the privacy notice. I do like the termy template. I'm not sure about the delete data statement. As MDAnalysis we do not have any data personally. Everything goes to third parties. Where we have no means to access the data in any way. Can we make such a statement?
This deletion right is another problem. With a tool like goatcounter that is impossible, even self-hosted. Because of the deanonymization algorithm, we cannot know which data belongs to a person. I do know some legal arguments that this is enough, but I'm not a lawyer.
orbeckst
commented
4 years ago I would go with the fact that we do not collect any data in our own services. We do not collect any personally identifiable information. We do not manage any accounts (there are some sections that refer to accounts that we should remove/alter).
Maybe NumFOCUS has some suggestions, they offered to have a look.
Either way, we can start removing Google Analytics from the site (and possibly also from the docs... the js might be embedded there, too—need to check).
orbeckst
commented
4 years ago According to NumFOCUS, their Privacy Policy is binding for all projects, which includes us. They are currently updating theirs. We have two options
kain88-de
commented
4 years ago Option 1 sounds good to me.
On Tue 23. Jun 2020 at 23:23, Oliver Beckstein notifications@github.com wrote:
According to NumFOCUS, their Privacy Policy is binding for all projects, which includes us. They are currently updating theirs. We have two options
- Link to NF and also list our 3rd party applications and data use
- Have our own policy but making sure that nothing in our policy contradicts the NF one.
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orbeckst
commented
4 years ago Goatcounter claims that their use does not need a GDPR https://www.goatcounter.com/gdpr.
In any case, if PR #132 is merged then we need to replace the note on GA with a note on Goatcounter.
orbeckst
commented
4 years ago NF‘s Privacy Policy https://numfocus.org/privacy-policy
orbeckst
commented
4 years ago Goatcounter is now active (PR #132, issue #131) and stats are available at https://mdanalysis.goatcounter.com/.
I changed the settings
Are these settings ok or should they be changed? This information should go into our Privacy Policy.
lilyminium
commented
4 years ago Visible stats would help transparency in terms of the data collected, and I can't see much sensitive info there (although I suppose right now I can guess someone in the US visits the site on a large iPhone ;-). Would keeping the data be beneficial for things like grant applications (e.g. X monthly ~visitors~ visits in 2020)?
orbeckst
commented
4 years ago US visits the site on a large iPhone ;-)
That wasn't me then... I looked at it from an iPad :-p
Would keeping the data be beneficial for things like grant applications (e.g. X monthly visits in 2020)?
Sure, we can bump it up to 365 days to get yearly stats; might be useful. I generally like the idea of having such data automatically disappear, though.
orbeckst
commented
4 years ago I changed the data retention interval to 365 days.
Would keeping the data be beneficial for things like grant applications (e.g. X monthly visits in 2020)?
Sure, we can bump it up to 365 days to get yearly stats; might be useful. I generally like the idea of having such data automatically disappear, though.
kain88-de
commented
4 years ago The stat counter is really nice. Interesting to see what people actually look at.
As MDAnalysis uses Google Analytics, we need to have a privacy policy and notify users about it (#7 on the terms and conditions).
Here's a template policy we could borrow.