You Are Not Worth Tracking, Sorry

A common post I've seen floating around the interwebs lately is the "I Don't Track You" statement, wherein the author assures the reader that they don't employ any privacy-invasive analytics methods.

This is a Good Thing™.

I've worked in SaaS for far too long, so as much as I can understand the value these tools bring to user experience design, marketing, conversions, and other gag-worthy buzzwords, I dislike strongly how seedy the underbelly of the "World Wide Web" has become.

At the risk of this post devolving into yet another rant about user privacy, the right to anonymity, and the utter garbage fire the online advertising industry has become, I'll just say this: I've never seen the more invasive tools used for anything more substantial than vanity making everyone think deep thoughts during weekly all hands meetings.

Look, I get it.

Knowing how many potential customers you have coming in the door, how many are actually buying, and how those numbers change as you run different marketing (which is not the same thing as advertising) and product experiments is super valuable to the growth of the business.

But collecting things like personally identifiable information and running retargeting campaigns—which, for the uninitiated, is basically just the digital equivalent of aggressive mall kiosk vendors who follow you around for half a mile because you accidentally made eye contact as you walked by—is just gross.

That said, my website is most assuredly not a business. It is a blog; and a mediocre one at that. While I would be happy to know how many tens of people stumble upon it from time to time, I don't need to know it. In fact, I'm probably better off not knowing it. If I'm being perfectly honest, it's none of my damn business.

So, in the vein of the aforementioned posts strewn about The Smol Web™, I Do Not Track You.

I don't have to, and I don't care to.

If you get any value out of what I have chosen to put out into the world, then I would love to hear from you (and possibly recommend a psych evaluation to account for your poor taste in internet content), but if you'd rather float by unseen, well then that's great too.

I hope you check it out and enjoy your stay.

Also published at flower.codes