full disclosure

[cellio]

A discussion in another journal has caused me to realize that what seems an innocuous action to me might be objectionable to others. So, disclosure and an invitation to discuss, if you care to:

I sometimes use a sort of "web bug" in my posts so I can collect limited access data (which data LJ does not provide). I did this initially out of simple curiosity, but soon realized that I could use it to find out (without asking) which of my posts get read more (or less). While I write primarily for myself, it's worth knowing if there are certain classes of posts that my readers tend to ignore. Secondarily, this also gives me some idea of where my "secondary" (non-LJ-subscriber) readers might be coming from, which is casually interesting.

To me this seems akin to someone who hosts his own blog reviewing the server logs. To others, I'm learning, this is akin to "spying". While lj-toys does try to report which LJ users are reading what, it's far from reliable. You'll have to take my word for it that I'm not really looking at that; I've got much better things to do than to peruse logs so I can say "aha! so-and-so claims to be my friend but never reads me!".

At the bottom of this post is a one-pixel image file. (If I could use something more blatant, I would.) If you're using Firefox and the AdBlock extension, you can block that image and lj-toys will never see hits from you. If you're using some other browser, I'm afraid I don't know how you can disable it.

If you feel that what I'm doing is objectionable, I would like to understand where you're coming from (here or privately, as you like).

Comments

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

As robertdfeinman points out, AdBlock actually doesn't block the request for the image (which would tip off advertisers that we were blocking their ads); it just doesn't show it in the web browser. So my instructions are wrong, and you'll have to use some other means to avoid lj-toys.

This does explain why lj-toys was seeing my own hits. ;)

Meh

[rob-of-unspace.livejournal.com]

Of course, I host my own blog and can see the raw server files and have several trackers as well.

Question -- when I pull up my friends page, do I show as having read your entries?

the internet is scary

[brokengoose.livejournal.com]

I think that it comes down to how well the technology is understood.

Every few years, somebody discovers that webservers keep logs and web browsers leak a whole lot of information. They panic and get all of the other non-technical and semi-technical people into a panic, as well.

Meanwhile, the people who understand the technology already know how much information is being leaked. They've decided that it's a worthwhile trade-off, or they've taken steps to make it a worthwhile trade off (via NoScript, turning off images, etc.)

Tomorrow's big story: it's trivially easy to forge email. Also, that nice man in Nigeria doesn't really want to give you ten million dollars.

(http://www.danasoft.com)
(http://www.danasoft.com)

[giddysinger.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I could care less about whether you have a way of tracking whether I personally view your posts. I think it's fairly self-evident that if you are on my friends list it is because I want to read your entries, which makes it a fairly trivial datum. (Not to mention that I comment frequently enough that it's pretty obvious that I read.) If I didn't have an LJ account (or is that _a_ LJ account?) or if you had an account over on Blogspot or some such, you would see that you have a reader from Silver Spring, MD with VzDSL -- you might then put the clues together and figure out that it was either me or Teh Geek. Either way, I just can't bring myself to view any of this as some kind of invasion of privacy.

[ealdthryth.livejournal.com]

As a librarian and information junkie, I struggle daily with issues like this. Personally, what you describe is no big deal to me and doesn't bother me. When I was on Diaryland, they offered a feature that let you do something similar. I thought it was cool.

[indigodove.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I am unbothered :-)

[grouchyoldcoot.livejournal.com]

Ooh, cool trick!

[tashabear.livejournal.com]

I knew you were doing this. I have my friends page set to block all images (except for user icons) -- even your 1 pixel image showed up with a placeholder. ;-)

[alaricmacconnal.livejournal.com]

I'm using Opera 9.51 and blocked content from this site:

http://cellio.icons.ljtoys.org.uk

Did you get the hit? FWIW, I don't object to this, more curious if I could choose to block using my browser.

When I chose to show no images, your 1x1 pixel showed up as 'lj-bug'. Once I blocked the site, it didn't show up at all.

[rectangularcat]

Heh, I probably show up as Vancouver when I am at work since I am using VPN to connect. Not always accurate. I wish I were in Vancouver.

[nickjong.livejournal.com]

Interesting. That explains the icon I see at the end of your posts. I have LiveJournal set not to display most images in my friends page. Too often someone posts a big image that screws up the formatting in the style I'm using.

(I don't mind the practice in question, although doesn't it only detect whether your post is being read by my web browser, not by my eyes?)

query

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

(How) can you tell the difference between my quickly scrolling past your entry and actually stopping to read it? It shows up as part of my FL, so unless I click on a cut-tag or the link to comments, I don't actually interact with your entry specifically.

[zare-k.livejournal.com]

Huh. It never occured to me that this would be an issue. I don't do tracking bugs on each post like you, but I do host my own images partly because it gives me some insight into where my readers come from. Of course I look at my own logs, it wouldn't occur to me not to.

[woodwindy.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's a tough one. I find myself slightly squicked at the idea of people tracking me that way, but intrigued by the notion of doing it to others, so I guess that makes me a selfish pragmatist... or maybe just hypocritical on this front? Hmmm.

At any rate, after a couple of days of flip-flopping and perusing other people's responses, I think you're perfectly within your rights to collect and examine that sort of data.

I think my qualms come from knowing that I often look at non-friended journals, and I would prefer at least the illusion of anonymity -- but I can't come up with any rational defense for that.

[gregbo.livejournal.com]

I thought about doing that, but I figured it wasn't worth the trouble, especially with people who take pains to make themselves untraceable. I have a fairly good idea of who's reading my journal among my LJ friends and some others I've picked up on other blogs, etc.

But I'm jealous because you get lots of replies for posting on topics like this, whereas I hardly get any replies. :(