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Comment by rchmura | Hacker News Reader

That doesn't do what you think it does. It only excludes your data from being included in Google Analytics reports that website owners "end users" see. All your data still goes to "the borg" as if nothing has really changed.

You need to block the domain completely using a privacy tool plug-in for your browser.

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Source?

According to Google:

> This add-on instructs the Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js, analytics.js, and dc.js) running on websites to prohibit their information from being used by Google Analytics. Using the Google Analytics opt-out plug-in will not prevent site owners from using other tools to measure site analytics.

https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/181881?hl=en

I've heard that the reason it sets a variable rather than blocking the script is to avoid breaking websites that do custom tracking.

I believe the key phrase is "being used by". If they weren't reporting it, they could use the stronger "being reported to Google Analytics". Or "being collected by".

Also note that by singling out Google Analytics, it's possible that the data might be collected and used by other Google tools, just not GA. Depends on how much mental gymnastics they are willing to do.

Of course, the best thing would be someone just looking at the actual javascript and seeing what it does.

I'm pointing out that "Google" and "Google Analytics" are separate and that when your data is collected "Google" gets it, processes it and then pushes the refined data to "Google Analytics". The raw data is used in the "internal API" (Which is different than the public APIs that you are familiar with). Both your source and OPs are referring to "Google Analytics" (which is the public part that webmasters see).

This appears to be pure unfounded speculation. Can you provide anything to back this up in any regard?

It's not speculation. Are you asking for more of a deeper explanation of how the internal API works, or do you want to see published papers/links about it? Google doesn't publicly document the "Google Analytics Internal API".

Please provide some evidence of this claim as it relates to this extension:

> when your data is collected "Google" gets it, processes it and then pushes the refined data to "Google Analytics".

You are asking for a publicly available document showing the architecture of Google + Analytics + Doubleclick + Adwords... I can't get that, but other than doing experiments; you could do what I did when I first found out which is go ask someone who works on the internal API. (That's what I did)

I run a custom DNS server with the domains blacklisted on there so any device on my home network is covered.

My set up is dnsmasq, which can issue DNS rules based upon the servers /etc/hosts file, and then Someone Who Cares hosts file[1] which has trackers and many other unwanted web nasties added to the loopback address.

And as its just hosts files, the thing is trivial to fully automate so once a week I pull the latest list of banned domains.

There are also other services like Someone Who Cares, some tailored more specifically towards Windows and some tailored more specifically to blocking ads, or malware, etc.

[1] http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/

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