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How can I conveniently opt out of Codidact analytics?
Since a few days, my Firefox add-on Privacy Badger shows me a new tracker originating from analytics.codidact.org. I read the privacy policy and it states that there is analytics going on to improve the site.
However, I don't want to contribute to this effort as I don't like my data to be analysed. Is there an option to opt out of analytics while allowing functional / necessary cookies?
(The paragraph in the privacy policy about disabling cookies altogether on my side is really inconvenient as I want to stay logged in.)
2 answers
You are accessing this answer with a direct link, so it's being shown above all other answers regardless of its score. You can return to the normal view.
It's not exactly an opt-out, but since you already have Privacy Badger installed, you can use it to block the requests.
To do that, simply open the Privacy Badger drop-down, and pull the slider for analytics.codidact.org all the way to the left (the crossed-out circle for "blocked").
Alternatively, if you're willing to potentially install another add-on, you can use uMatrix (even in default-allow mode) to block all requests from *.codidact.org to analytics.codidact.org, to achieve much the same effect.
By doing either of these, the requests should never even make it to the analytics software (which would be required for it to determine that you've opted out of analytics), thus maintaining your privacy while still allowing otherwise full use of the site.
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We have analytics in use because they're helpful. The data the analytics system collects for us highlights where we're doing well (or not) and what people are using (or not), as well as helping to identify the sources of traffic spikes and dips. Having that knowledge is genuinely useful in helping to guide what we work on.
Our analytics are handled by Matomo, which is an open-source analytics package. We host and run it ourselves, so the data collected never leaves our own servers. It's also much better at not being greedy and simply collecting absolutely everything just because it can, unlike, say, Google Analytics.
So - if you (and others who have this question, too) are willing to reconsider, we do appreciate having that ability to analyse what's going on.
If you've read this and you'd still like to opt out - well, hey, at least it's an informed decision now! Follow this link and uncheck the box to opt out. (You can also block any cookies that start with _pk, if you want to be extra-sure.)
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