Updates to Omniture on LiveJournal

[theljstaff]

We’re making a change to the way we've been gathering statistics on LiveJournal and wanted to let you know the plan and details in advance.

Back in January, we announced that we'd start using Omniture SiteCatalyst as the system that lets us dig deeper into how members and visitors use LiveJournal. Back then, we had only used Omniture's tracking

Comments

[wyldemusick]

While this all seems benign, the veritable stealth nature of this announcement, and the opt-out instructions, pretty much guarantees another round of anger, hysteria, and general condemnation of LJ. You folks never learn, do you?

To those yawping about whether this system will scan friends-only entries...no. The bit about "private" entries was just, again, an LJ staffer being ineffective, incomplete, and unclear.

[soleta_nf]

To those yawping about whether this system will scan friends-only entries...no.

On what basis do you conclude that? I think that would make a lot of people feel better.

[wyldemusick]

It's basically a spidering project. It'll follow data traces, but it'll ignore anything that's got a flag that indicates private/passworded. There's no reason for it to have the ability to access those areas. I'f imagine the data will be pretty much anonymized, even matched up against general profile data

[soleta_nf]

Thank you for the clarification. After reading clarifications like these from people like you in the comments, I feel a lot better. I just wish that LJ/6A had better PR people so that they provided more clarifications in their posts (rather than sticking with technical terms that most people won't understand). It's understandable that people are confused.

[yuki_scorpio]

If I opted out, does that apply to the communities I run or do I have to do that separately, and if so, how?

[maetang]

Good question! I would also like an answer to this for the communities I run.

[markf]

I believe this is tracking information on pages viewed for the account you're logged into. Since you can't login to a community, there's nothing for a community to opt out of.

[florahart]

It's counting page views, though, and says very small random sampling (about 5%) of journals and communities.

[rhapsody11]

I got two questions:

* We're only going to apply the cookie to a very small random sampling of users, about 5%.

Are these people informed and can you give insight in how this random sampling of users is done? On what is the random sampling based? Interest? Demographics (Gender)?

* We're using the resulting stats to find out what to focus on in the future for LJ.

May I ask who has access to this data? Advertisers? Third parties? Or is that all included in the privacy statement,and are those the entities you mention there? Will you include this new thing in the LiveJournal Privacy Policy (is recommended)?

[rhapsody11]

okay thanks :) (also for the fast response!)

[nursemette]

It's good to hear that it won't be given to any third parties.

[janeaverage]

How are you choosing your "random sampling" of users?

Why are you worried about the future so much? If you don't focus on the present at some point, there won't BE a future for LJ.

Is there ANY POSSIBLE WAY that either the Omniture data or the opting-out could be used against people? ie can you easily tell who has opted out (so it could be assumed we have something to hide)? Or if you use your banhammer on one of the "randomly sampled" users, would it be possible use their Omniture data to identify other People You Are Not Interested In Hosting? (Notice I did not ask if you WOULD do these things, because you've already stated that you will only use this to find your focus. But I do know that you love your lies and misdirection and spin, so I want to know whether, down the line, you COULD.)

[janeaverage]

kimmi8, you ARE "still unknown" to some of us, and as such it would be helpful if you'd identify yourself as a 6A employee instead of making me look at your journal and profile

[blackbird_song]

Thank you for the news of this (though I agree with others that it should be more widely posted, as in news), and thank you also for the clear and explicit instructions for opting out, which I have just executed for all my journals and communities.

Now for a suggestion: While I appreciate the fact that it's more useful to you if you make this sort of info-gathering an opt-out, it might go some way further toward easing the minds of your user base if you made all such exercises "opt-in" for the next year, or so. There's a lot of trust that you need to recapture, and I would respectfully remind you of the timeless adage in the business world: "It takes years to build a customer and seconds to lose one." Many other clichés apply, of course, and all of them might be rendered moot (or closer to it) by giving us a more solid illusion of control and safety here than we currently have. ;)

[maetang]

If you wouldn't mind sharing the information: how do I opt out of this for the communities I manage? I can't figure it out from the Admin Console alone.

Thanks.

[blackbird_song]

I don't mind at all! :)

You type in (no quotes or brackets when you do this, of course): "set for [community name] opt_exclude_stats 1", then hit the Execute button.

Best of luck!

[maetang]

Thank you! I'll be sure to pass that info on to others as well. :^)