There is nothing more evil in modern business than marketers. Between real life experience and MBA classes I have come to despise most everything involved in modern marketing, especially in the technology space.
This isn't evil marketers hiding in their underground lair. This is web developers, designers, and product managers gaining insight about their users. They don't package this information and sell it wholesale to advertisers. They use it to make the product better.
You are taking this -way- too seriously. The ability to have perfect information on how users interact with your product is one the earth-shattering advantages we have as makers in the digital world. It means we can make something people want - better and faster than ever before.
I'm not saying that all use of tracking is good. All power can be used for good and for evil. But that doesn't mean that power is implictly evil. Save your rage for when you discover someone actually being evil.
This is entirely just an attempt to get competitive analysis about their competitors at the expense of user privacy.
There is no evidence in the article that Kissmetrics stitched these together in any way other than what is available in standard referrers. If you hand typed the info in, referrer is blank, and I don't think Kissmetrics imputed the referrer from their data. I don't use the tool, however; can actual customers let HN know if it actually does what Zed thinks it does? Because that would clearly be stepping some bounds if it did this even on "do not track" folks.
And is the fact that it CAN do this is different from the fact that it CAN but isn't (well, if it actually isn't, see previous paragraph)? If they are, then let's yell. But if it's just possibility, then it's like yelling about Google seeing all my searches. The answer: Yes, they do. I can choose not to use Google, or I can benefit from their tech at the cost of sharing some info.
Instead of believing that no one has any right to collect any data on my usage in a world where we leave digital tracks all over the place, lets instead work to minimize risk and maximize value for users. There is always data leakage, and that data can actually help folks if treated with respect and ethics.
And yes, actually, Hulu could use that data to improve their product. But if you don't want to tracked, it's none of their business and they'll have to find another way.
If Hulu sees that noticeable numbers of visitors to sites like goat-sucking-maggot.com, or that site and a combination of other sites, tend to watch movies of a certain genre or other attribute, they can offer more movies like that, and suggest them for visitors to g-s-m.com. Which does improve their product, especially for visitors to g-s-m.com.
Yet. Genie, meet bottle.
Thinking this information will never be sold is short sighted and naive.
When it becomes advantageous for them to do so, they'll sell it in a heartbeat and then sell it again. Somewhere in there the FBI and the NSA will start making "requests" for them to share with the government.
What begins as clever social commentary in movies like Minority Report tends to wind up as a sad fact of life years later.
It's used to allow publishers to make more money from their consumers through advertising.
Additionally, cross-site tracking isn't used for feature/usage tracking. It's used for highly targeted advertising.
My point was the "shattering advantages" are really advantages for advertisers, not web designers.
This technique wasn't developed with web designers in mind, so let's be clear about that.
EDIT: But apparently no one cares, and will listen to whoever talks like an authority.
They pump exorbitant amounts of money into advertising, thereby increasing the final price paid by customers without increasing product quality. Furthermore, they use these advertisements to inflate their customers' perceived value of the products, once again, without actually increasing product quality.
Marketers maximize profits, not quality.
Google is nothing but an advertising company, yet 99+% of us only ever see them as a search, email, blogging, and cloud docs company. A huge number of us use their products, because they're good products. As their products improve, their cash accumulates.
I've never been in a Google meeting, but I suppose Google's marketers have some input into product development; at Google, that input is probably based on data.
So it's okay for them to be evil as long as we don't discover that they are? More seriously, once they have the info, how can we be sure we nail them? The best way is still to ensure that they don't get the information in the first place.
global warming, education reform, prison reform, the national debt, healthcare, literacy, food production, biodiversity, etc.
Marketing is probably the single most important career there is right now, and if there's any hope of humanity making it through the next thousand years then it'll almost certainly be due to improvements in our ability to market things rather than new technology.
I can accept that there are ideas which are critical to the survival of the human race and/or modern civilization, which require mass education, and utterly reject your conclusion.
For example, a newly minted MBA in Marketing needs to pay back school loans. Who has the money to pay them? Who has the job that will bring the most prestige and future earnings? The local farm selling grass-fed beef and organic products or P&G selling highly processed foods that are destroying the environment?
The marketer is going to take the P&G job and then spend their time and brainpower convincing people to buy even more processed crap.
At this moment, you're probably mad and probably wondering what you did wrong as well as wondering if I'm just being an asshole. You're also looking at the score of your post and wondering why it is what it is; "Did he down-vote me and someone else up-voted me? Or is he just trying to make a point?"
I was just making a point, so no, I did not actually down-vote you. The thing is, you and many others have fallen, "For exactly the same traps marketers set." The trap, even if entirely fake, is the reason for the your initial anger, confusion and pondering.
This is an odd and harsh way of both supporting your point and refuting it. You are only human, so you'll get angry if you fall for a trap. None the less, you are correct; often the answer is to stop interacting with or buying from those who would try to trap you, but unfortunately, you do not always have the choice until after the fact.
Interesting point, and I agree.
> if there's any hope of humanity making it through the next thousand years then it'll almost certainly be due to improvements in our ability to market things rather than new technology.
If by our ability you mean progressives/the left, then I agree. Surely marketing per se is at best a neutral force.