JS tracker should not track anything when the protocol is file:// to avoid tracking personal data by accident

[tsteur]

Use case:

Someone downloads a page from your website and stores it locally. Then the user opens it and the user will be tracked and the URL might look like

file:///C:/Users/myname/AppData/Local/...

This way we actually track personal data potentially by accident without knowing.

• We would always exclude page urls with this protocol by default
• There should be a method to opt out of this feature so you can track these requests if needed.
• We create an FAQ to document this behaviour / feature.

As this could be seen as a BC break we need to maybe wait for Matomo 5 for this and/or clearly announce this and warn users of this change.

[tsteur]

see https://developer.matomo.org/guides/jstracker-core this would need to be changed in js/piwik.js see how to embed tracking code https://developer.matomo.org/guides/tracking-javascript-guide

[tsteur]

This would be a great new privacy feature which be quick to implement 👍

[peterhashair]

@tsteur just found we have something similar, but not the same. Do we consider removing that one? https://github.com/matomo-org/matomo/blob/6be3e32e29ef8c70e13ace7ef02efcacb64154b5/js/piwik.js#L6524-L6528

[tsteur]

@peterhashair we would keep it to not break the API as some people might use this

[peterhashair]

Add documents here. https://matomo.org/?post_type=faq&p=59435&preview=true

[sgiehl]

@peterhashair the new method should also be added here: https://developer.matomo.org/api-reference/tracking-javascript But as this will be included in Matomo 5 only, we maybe should first start the documentation for 5.x. See https://github.com/matomo-org/developer-documentation/issues/675

[peterhashair]

@sgiehl should I wait for the 5.x documentation created? Or should I created PR follow those steps https://github.com/matomo-org/developer-documentation/#how-to-add-docs-for-a-new-matomo-version

[sgiehl]

Let's wait till https://github.com/matomo-org/developer-documentation/issues/675 is done

[justinvelluppillai]

Looks like this is ready now @peterhashair @sgiehl - 5.x-dev documentation is now live.

[peterhashair]

@justinvelluppillai added updates.

[MatomoForumNotifications]

This issue has been mentioned on Matomo forums. There might be relevant details there:

https://forum.matomo.org/t/strange-item-in-analytics/53432/2

[manufitoussiwit]

And what about tracking in Electron based application ? UI is often served with file:// protocol. It the case of my application.

The solution explained here https://fr.matomo.org/faq/how-to/enable-file-protocol-tracking/ is not really a good solution. It requires to build a new version of my application to reactivate tracking. In other words, update matomo in v5 leads to loose tracking of my current clients untill they update their app.

Is there another solution?

[sgiehl]

@manufitoussiwit Guess that depends a bit how you have integrated Matomo into that application. If you use the TagManager it would be easy to add an additional call like this. Otherwise I think there might only be the possibility to adjust the tracker file yourself to enable file tracking.