Ban embed codes
Prompted by my article on third-party code, here’s a recommendation to ditch any embeds on your website.
Doc Searls Weblog · How the cookie poisoned the Web
Lou’s idea was just for a server to remember the last state of a browser’s interaction with it. But that one move—a server putting a cookie inside every visiting browser—crossed a privacy threshold: a personal boundary that should have been clear from the start but was not.
Once that boundary was crossed, and the number and variety of cookies increased, a snowball started rolling, and whatever chance we had to protect our privacy behind that boundary, was lost.
The Doctor is incensed.
At this stage of the Web’s moral devolution, it is nearly impossible to think outside the cookie-based fecosystem.
Related links
Remove Trackers - CSS-Tricks
Laura and I are on the same page here.
Ain’t No Party Like a Third Party - CSS-Tricks
Chris is doing another end-of-year roundup. This time the prompt is “What is one thing people can do to make their website bettter?”
This is my response.
I’d like to tell you something not to do to make your website better. Don’t add any third-party scripts to your site.
No cookie for you - The GitHub Blog
I wish more companies would realise that this is a perfectly reasonable approach to take:
We decided to look for a solution. After a brief search, we found one: just don’t use any non-essential cookies. Pretty simple, really. 🤔
So, we have removed all non-essential cookies from GitHub, and visiting our website does not send any information to third-party analytics services.
Blacklight – The Markup
This is an excellent new tool for showing exactly what kind of tracking a site is doing:
Who is peeking over your shoulder while you work, watch videos, learn, explore, and shop on the internet? Enter the address of any website, and Blacklight will scan it and reveal the specific user-tracking technologies on the site—and who’s getting your data. You may be surprised at what you learn.
Best of all, you can inspect the raw data and analyse the methodology.
There are some accompanying explainers:
Related posts
Ad tech
It is not the job of browser makers to prop up business models, especially ones that don’t even work.
Tracking
It’s time to have the conversation. You’re old enough to know where stats come from.
Get the FLoC out
Google Chrome is prioritising third parties over end users.
Get safe
It should be safe to visit a web page.
GDPR and Google Analytics
Do you have permission for those third-party scripts?