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Comment by k33n | Hacker News Reader

I've worked with the KM folks. Great people, genuinely kind, and they want to make a great product. I think it's disgusting to single out a startup like this, especially right as they are gaining traction with some big-name clients.

There is value in what they are doing, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. They are tracking user behavior completely anonymously.

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Road to hell is paved with good intentions, etc etc.

I'm not going to make any moral judgments about their team since I don't know any of them. Even if they are on the up and up and mean the best, IMO the technology they are employing is illegitimate at best - it violates user expectations when using the internet, and IMO makes the industry more dangerous for the rest of us by giving legislators and luddites more ammunition. I am absolutely against supercookies.

I'm not sure why it's relevant that they're tracking users anonymously - the user gets to decide at the end of the day who they share their information with. To make this decision for them is presumptuous, to force them to comply despite their implied non-consent is the height of arrogance.

There absolutely is something wrong with what they are doing. They are deliberately going out of their way to stop me from enforcing my personal privacy requirements on my browser running on my computer over my network.

If I installed an application on your computer that sent me the names of all the applications you ran, when you ran them and how long for. That reinstalled itself when you attempted to remove it and that used every technique it could to gather information about you, you would want me arrested as a hacker.

I think what they do is disgusting, and I hope to hell that stories like this kill the traction they have gained with some big-name clients.

I'll leave discussion about valid of KM's activity aside, what is it about the "I know X, genuinely great people and really want to do good stuff" formula (with no substantive arguments) that seems to make to the top of these hn debates? (I'm sure the KM people love puppy dogs, etc).

Indeed, it's annoying. I'm sure most spammers, phishers etc love their mom and are cool guys when you meet them over coffee or drinks. It says nothing about their business ethics.

If a user requests not to be tracked they should not be tracked. Even when the information is harmless, as I am sure it most likely is in this case, it sets a bad example and will make it worse for the industry.

They are tracking user behavior completely anonymously

Just because you, a human, cant look at the millions of data points and go "oh look, there's george tomlinson of 28 esperay avenue doing something we dont like" doesnt mean that it cannot be done or will not be done, or indeed is not being done already.

Some of us dont want to walk around with yellow badges thank you. Do you imagine that fact that the badges are only visible to those with the resources and motive to discover them, and not the average joe, is more, or less of a motivation for privacy?

Of course there's value in what they're doing — to advertisers. As a user, I am not 100% comfortable with any tracking service, supercookie-based or otherwise.

[Edit: Made the wording clearer]

KISSmetrics specializes in funnel analytics, not helping advertisers. I'm surprised by the number of people making that assumption.

I have a SaaS app and I use KISSmetrics to learn what sorts of things engage visitors and customers the most. It's helped me make critical decisions that benefit both me and my customers (by improving multi-step processes).

Yea, they are _now_. How quickly that can change.

If there is nothing wrong with what they are doing, why do they force it on me?

Actually, given what you said in that post, why do you force it on me?

Don't bother deny it -- you wouldn't know if they are getting traction if you weren't working with them.

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