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> Why does the Document Foundation need to track me? It's not "tracking" (in the sense of monitoring what you do on other sites). On the LibreOffice website, w

> Why does the Document Foundation need to track me? It's not "tracking" (in the sense of monitoring what you do on other sites). On the LibreOffice website, we use the open source stats tool Matomo (formerly Piwik) to get an overview of how people use the site, how people go from one page to another, so that we can improve it. Lots of FOSS projects do this. Also, as explained in the privacy policy, JavaScript is required if you want to use certain third-party services that are embedded into some pages: https://www.libreoffice.org/about-us/privacy/privacy-policy-en/ https://www.libreoffice.org/about-us/privacy/privacy-policy-... > Is LibreOffice itself doing something sneaky that I don't know about? Of course not. We're a volunteer-driven, community open source project. It's all in the open :-) If you really want to change how the website works, we'd appreciate a hand: website+subscribe@global.libreoffice.org - thanks!

WorkLifeBalance 8y ago
1. What you've described as 'not "tracking" ' is tracking. It's not third-party tracking but you're still deliberately adding a cookie for the purpose of tracking users across your site. 2. Your privacy policy contains: > !!!add opt-out frame on the website at this position!!!
- mksaunders 8y ago
  > 1. What you've described as 'not "tracking" ' is tracking. It's not third-party tracking but you're still deliberately adding a cookie for the purpose of tracking users across your site. OK, we're using open source tools to try to improve the site. Plenty of other FOSS projects do this... Not sure why we're being singled out :-)
  - mcbits 8y ago
    It sounds like it's more intrusive than most of the GDPR cookie notice spam that's been appearing on sites. But if it's causing users to start noticing and asking questions about the tracking on web sites, then GDPR seems to be working. (uBlock Origin also seems to be working because I didn't see the notice.)
  - anc84 8y ago
    You are not singled-out, this is a submission about you so it makes sense to talk about you. Everyone who tracks has improvements in mind.
  - dspillett 8y ago
    > Not sure why we're being singled out Someone who cares has noticed, and enough other people care that the thread is getting upvoted enough to hit the front page of HN. Though still you are not being "singled" out as there are plenty of sites which have had their cookie/privacy/tracking/other behaviours picked apart recently. You are not the first/only and will not be the last!
  - sjmulder 8y ago
    Not sure why we're being singled out :-) Didn't mean no harm or to single you guys out. You're doing fantastic work. But broken and noncompliant notices do bother me a bit. Sorry to drag on like this but the privacy statement (thanks for linking) says: takes place only with the consent of the user It does not, as there appears to be a second cookie notice underneath the first stating how consent is assumed: We use only those functional cookies which are absolutely necessary to ensure that we give you the best navigation experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with them. From my understanding, if you're using only functional cookies and no tracking you don't even need consent (as you have legal basis) and you can drop the notice altogether. But I don't think analytics count as functional cookies. Now aside from that nitpicking, thanks for writing such a clear privacy policy and making such good choices regarding the social media buttons, YouTube's privacy mode, and so on. Props!
    - mksaunders 8y ago
      Thanks for the feedback! I'll pass it on to the website team :-)
      - mmastrac 8y ago
        Don't let comments on Hacker News unduely influence your website decision making. The issues raised here tend to be laser focused on things that likely won't correlate with your success in the market. You'll never be able to please everyone so your ability to study and run experiments is key. If anything, it sounds like you are doing things exactly the right way.
      - wiz21c 8y ago
        Very good answer. By these time of GDPR and privacy protection, it's super important that open source/free software project be absolute models in those areas. Indeed, when I recommend using free software like LibreOffice, its in great part because of the trust I have in your code (trust that I won't be fd now or in the future). Uncompromizing handling of cookies is part of that trust. Thanks for your wonderful job ! edit: in case it's not clear : i'm all for appropriate tracking (in your context, improving the website), provided that 1/ I know about it 2/ I have a choice (in your case, I'll opt in* if I can)
  - ptero 8y ago
    You are not singled out, treat this as user preferences or feature requests. People here are direct, but this is an environment feature of HN. Most folks here greatly appreciate your work (I do). That said, let me throw a few more stones: 1. The fact that you use OS tools to track users is almost irrelevant. I can still collect and lose data with FOSS tools. A tool is a tool (and tracking is tracking). 2. Sorry, I am not buying the "we need to know how you move on site to improve it". You write a great FOSS office productivity tool set. You should not care how much time users spend on your site, etc. In fact, your web site can be pretty basic for downloading new software. If you really need to figure out how people move within your site this should be easy to recover from IPs and web server logs. Just my 2c and please keep doing your great work!
    - mksaunders 8y ago
      > tracking is tracking But as another commenter here mentioned, simplifications like that do far more damage than good. In the broader world, "tracking" on the internet generally refers to companies following you all over the web and selling your data. By saying "tracking is tracking", you lump TDF's use of Piwik (for our site, for our own use, with obfuscated data in storage and a clear privacy policy) with that of advertising providers, who really do track you all over the web, don't tell you what they store, and sell your data. By saying "tracking is tracking", you tar everyone in the same brush. That's lacking nuance and really, really unfair to volunteer-driven FOSS projects (many of which use Piwik) that are just trying to do their best. > You should not care how much time users spend on your site, etc. Well, that's your opinion! But many of us in the LibreOffice community see the website as a major part of the product (and project). Do we want to spread the word about FOSS? Compete effectively with MS Office? Build our community and attract new contributors? Encourage donations so that we can support the community? Then we need a well-structured and useful website. Analytics tools help a lot in that. > In fact, your web site can be pretty basic for downloading new software. Again, that's the way you see it, fair enough. But actually the site needs to do a lot more than that. It needs to encourage people to try the software (screenshots, videos etc.) It needs to provide help, and support options, and front-ends to mailing lists. It needs to provide infrastructure for the project and community as a whole. The more we can optimise that - with the help of some analytics tools - the stronger we can make LibreOffice and the community. That's very important to us; if you disagree, join the LibreOffice project website list and put forward your case :-)
- kqr 8y ago
  > What you've described as 'not "tracking" ' is tracking. It's not third-party tracking but you're still deliberately adding a cookie for the purpose of tracking users across your site. I'd argue you're being unfair with terminology here. People generally talk about tracking when referring to cookies and scripts that monitor what other sites users visit. Monitoring sessions on your own site is ethically distinct enough to warrant its own term: web analytics. You may think these are bad terms that don't reflect the true nature of the issue, and I'd be inclined to agree with you, but it is not an excuse to willingly conflate the two without qualifying it.
mrob 8y ago
Even if your tracking isn't directly harmful (I make no claims if it is or not), it's still indirectly harmful because it's training users to ignore warning pop-ups.
- mksaunders 8y ago
  Look at it this way: * If we had a bad website, people would complain that it's ineffective, and not helping drive people towards FOSS * If we then add open source analytics tools to try to improve the site, people ask why we are "tracking" them * If we then add a banner, people complain that we're training people to ignore banners ...so it's hard to get anything right, it seems! We could remove Piwik completely (although it's not my call - I'm just one person in the project). But then it'd be much harder to improve our website. Piwik is really useful and if we want FOSS to be more widespread and adopted, we shouldn't shy away from such tools, IMO.
  - jhasse 8y ago
    You're are assuming that not using tracking will automatically result in a bad website. > We could remove Piwik completely Yes, please do that. > But then it'd be much harder to improve our website. Why?
    - mksaunders 8y ago
      > You're are assuming that not using tracking will automatically result in a bad website. But that's not what I said at all. Please don't just thrown in things like that. I said that analytics tools can be really useful in many ways to help to improve a website (especially a bad one). You ask "why", well look here at the features that the open source tool we use provides: https://matomo.org/features/ https://matomo.org/features/ I'm not sure if you've worked in website design before but many of those features are very important and effective for improving a website. If we want to spread the word about FOSS, and encourage more people to use it, shouldn't we try to make the best website we can? While also informing users about the open source tools we use, and having a clear privacy policy about them? https://www.libreoffice.org/about-us/privacy/privacy-policy-en/ https://www.libreoffice.org/about-us/privacy/privacy-policy-...
Vinnl 8y ago
Hmm, if you don't store personally identifiable information (such as the IP address), then I don't think you even need a tracking warning?
djsumdog 8y ago
> formerly Piwik I met two of the Piwik guys years ago. They got free office space at an open source company in NZ. Cool people. I remember at the time Piwik did support log scraping and Javascript tracking, but they recommended having how Piwik instances if you wanted both (one that scraped logs and the other that just did Javascript). I'm not sure there are any platforms that actually do both (which would also let you build stats on who has Javascript off or what may or may not be a robot). But the short story long: they can just do log parsing and not need the Javascript component.

WorkLifeBalance 8y ago

1. What you've described as 'not "tracking" ' is tracking. It's not third-party tracking but you're still deliberately adding a cookie for the purpose of tracking users across your site. 2. Your privacy policy contains: > !!!add opt-out frame on the website at this position!!!

mksaunders 8y ago
> 1. What you've described as 'not "tracking" ' is tracking. It's not third-party tracking but you're still deliberately adding a cookie for the purpose of tracking users across your site. OK, we're using open source tools to try to improve the site. Plenty of other FOSS projects do this... Not sure why we're being singled out :-)
- mcbits 8y ago
  It sounds like it's more intrusive than most of the GDPR cookie notice spam that's been appearing on sites. But if it's causing users to start noticing and asking questions about the tracking on web sites, then GDPR seems to be working. (uBlock Origin also seems to be working because I didn't see the notice.)
- anc84 8y ago
  You are not singled-out, this is a submission about you so it makes sense to talk about you. Everyone who tracks has improvements in mind.
- dspillett 8y ago
  > Not sure why we're being singled out Someone who cares has noticed, and enough other people care that the thread is getting upvoted enough to hit the front page of HN. Though still you are not being "singled" out as there are plenty of sites which have had their cookie/privacy/tracking/other behaviours picked apart recently. You are not the first/only and will not be the last!
- sjmulder 8y ago
  Not sure why we're being singled out :-) Didn't mean no harm or to single you guys out. You're doing fantastic work. But broken and noncompliant notices do bother me a bit. Sorry to drag on like this but the privacy statement (thanks for linking) says: takes place only with the consent of the user It does not, as there appears to be a second cookie notice underneath the first stating how consent is assumed: We use only those functional cookies which are absolutely necessary to ensure that we give you the best navigation experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with them. From my understanding, if you're using only functional cookies and no tracking you don't even need consent (as you have legal basis) and you can drop the notice altogether. But I don't think analytics count as functional cookies. Now aside from that nitpicking, thanks for writing such a clear privacy policy and making such good choices regarding the social media buttons, YouTube's privacy mode, and so on. Props!
  - mksaunders 8y ago
    Thanks for the feedback! I'll pass it on to the website team :-)
    - mmastrac 8y ago
      Don't let comments on Hacker News unduely influence your website decision making. The issues raised here tend to be laser focused on things that likely won't correlate with your success in the market. You'll never be able to please everyone so your ability to study and run experiments is key. If anything, it sounds like you are doing things exactly the right way.
    - wiz21c 8y ago
      Very good answer. By these time of GDPR and privacy protection, it's super important that open source/free software project be absolute models in those areas. Indeed, when I recommend using free software like LibreOffice, its in great part because of the trust I have in your code (trust that I won't be fd now or in the future). Uncompromizing handling of cookies is part of that trust. Thanks for your wonderful job ! edit: in case it's not clear : i'm all for appropriate tracking (in your context, improving the website), provided that 1/ I know about it 2/ I have a choice (in your case, I'll opt in* if I can)
- ptero 8y ago
  You are not singled out, treat this as user preferences or feature requests. People here are direct, but this is an environment feature of HN. Most folks here greatly appreciate your work (I do). That said, let me throw a few more stones: 1. The fact that you use OS tools to track users is almost irrelevant. I can still collect and lose data with FOSS tools. A tool is a tool (and tracking is tracking). 2. Sorry, I am not buying the "we need to know how you move on site to improve it". You write a great FOSS office productivity tool set. You should not care how much time users spend on your site, etc. In fact, your web site can be pretty basic for downloading new software. If you really need to figure out how people move within your site this should be easy to recover from IPs and web server logs. Just my 2c and please keep doing your great work!
  - mksaunders 8y ago
    > tracking is tracking But as another commenter here mentioned, simplifications like that do far more damage than good. In the broader world, "tracking" on the internet generally refers to companies following you all over the web and selling your data. By saying "tracking is tracking", you lump TDF's use of Piwik (for our site, for our own use, with obfuscated data in storage and a clear privacy policy) with that of advertising providers, who really do track you all over the web, don't tell you what they store, and sell your data. By saying "tracking is tracking", you tar everyone in the same brush. That's lacking nuance and really, really unfair to volunteer-driven FOSS projects (many of which use Piwik) that are just trying to do their best. > You should not care how much time users spend on your site, etc. Well, that's your opinion! But many of us in the LibreOffice community see the website as a major part of the product (and project). Do we want to spread the word about FOSS? Compete effectively with MS Office? Build our community and attract new contributors? Encourage donations so that we can support the community? Then we need a well-structured and useful website. Analytics tools help a lot in that. > In fact, your web site can be pretty basic for downloading new software. Again, that's the way you see it, fair enough. But actually the site needs to do a lot more than that. It needs to encourage people to try the software (screenshots, videos etc.) It needs to provide help, and support options, and front-ends to mailing lists. It needs to provide infrastructure for the project and community as a whole. The more we can optimise that - with the help of some analytics tools - the stronger we can make LibreOffice and the community. That's very important to us; if you disagree, join the LibreOffice project website list and put forward your case :-)
kqr 8y ago
> What you've described as 'not "tracking" ' is tracking. It's not third-party tracking but you're still deliberately adding a cookie for the purpose of tracking users across your site. I'd argue you're being unfair with terminology here. People generally talk about tracking when referring to cookies and scripts that monitor what other sites users visit. Monitoring sessions on your own site is ethically distinct enough to warrant its own term: web analytics. You may think these are bad terms that don't reflect the true nature of the issue, and I'd be inclined to agree with you, but it is not an excuse to willingly conflate the two without qualifying it.

mrob 8y ago

Even if your tracking isn't directly harmful (I make no claims if it is or not), it's still indirectly harmful because it's training users to ignore warning pop-ups.

mksaunders 8y ago
Look at it this way: * If we had a bad website, people would complain that it's ineffective, and not helping drive people towards FOSS * If we then add open source analytics tools to try to improve the site, people ask why we are "tracking" them * If we then add a banner, people complain that we're training people to ignore banners ...so it's hard to get anything right, it seems! We could remove Piwik completely (although it's not my call - I'm just one person in the project). But then it'd be much harder to improve our website. Piwik is really useful and if we want FOSS to be more widespread and adopted, we shouldn't shy away from such tools, IMO.
- jhasse 8y ago
  You're are assuming that not using tracking will automatically result in a bad website. > We could remove Piwik completely Yes, please do that. > But then it'd be much harder to improve our website. Why?
  - mksaunders 8y ago
    > You're are assuming that not using tracking will automatically result in a bad website. But that's not what I said at all. Please don't just thrown in things like that. I said that analytics tools can be really useful in many ways to help to improve a website (especially a bad one). You ask "why", well look here at the features that the open source tool we use provides: https://matomo.org/features/ https://matomo.org/features/ I'm not sure if you've worked in website design before but many of those features are very important and effective for improving a website. If we want to spread the word about FOSS, and encourage more people to use it, shouldn't we try to make the best website we can? While also informing users about the open source tools we use, and having a clear privacy policy about them? https://www.libreoffice.org/about-us/privacy/privacy-policy-en/ https://www.libreoffice.org/about-us/privacy/privacy-policy-...

Vinnl 8y ago

Hmm, if you don't store personally identifiable information (such as the IP address), then I don't think you even need a tracking warning?

djsumdog 8y ago

> formerly Piwik I met two of the Piwik guys years ago. They got free office space at an open source company in NZ. Cool people. I remember at the time Piwik did support log scraping and Javascript tracking, but they recommended having how Piwik instances if you wanted both (one that scraped logs and the other that just did Javascript). I'm not sure there are any platforms that actually do both (which would also let you build stats on who has Javascript off or what may or may not be a robot). But the short story long: they can just do log parsing and not need the Javascript component.