New Method of Tracking UIP Hits? 174
smurray writes "iMediaConnection has an interesting article on a new approach to web analysis. The author claims that he is describing 'new, cutting edge methodologies for identifying people, methodologies that -- at this point -- no web analytics product supports.' What's more interesting, the new technology doesn't seem to be privacy intrusive." Many companies seem unhappy with the accepted norms of tracking UIP results. Another approach to solving this problem was also previously covered on Slashdot.
uhm, what? (Score:3, Funny)
The Wookie defense in action!
Re:uhm, what? (Score:2)
Give me a break. How can this be possible when the approach suggests using multiple tests rather than one, ranging from analyzing dated cookies, IP addresses and Flash Shared Objects?
Their approach seems to be common-sense. I believe most sites worth some salt do not use just one metric. Maybe if someone can get a hold of the research paper and post it, then we can see if their implementation is really revolutionary. Another problem is that
You forgot JACU... (Score:1)
Re:uhm, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Their suggestion may be common-sense, but their approach borders on messianic:
"This article is going to ask you to make a paradigm shift... new, cutting edge methodologies... no web analytics product supports... a journey from first generation web analytics to second."
Followed by a lengthy paragraph on "paradigm shifts". In fact, the article takes three pages to basically say:
"In a nut-shell: To determine a web metric we should apply multiple tests, not just count one thing."
Here's a clue, Brandt Dainow - It's a common-sense way of counting visitors, not a new fucking religion.
The basic approach is to use a selection of criteria to assess visitor numbers - cookies first, then use different IPs/userAgents with close access-times to differentiate again, etc.
The good news is there are only three problems with this approach. The bad news is, that makes them effectively useless, or certainly not much more useful than the normal method of user-counting:
Problem 1
There is no information returned to a web server that isn't trivially gameable, and absolutely no way to tie any kind of computer access to a particular human:
"1. If the same cookie is present on multiple visits, it's the same person."
Non-techie friends are always wanting to buy things from Amazon as a one-off, so I let them use my account. Boom - that's up to twenty people represented by one cookie, right there.
"2. We next sort our visits by cookie ID and look at the cookie life spans. Different cookies that overlap in time are different users. In other words, one person can't have two cookies at the same time."
Except that I habitually leave my GMail account (for example) logged in both at work and at home. Many people I know use two or more "personal" computers, and don't bother logging out of their webmail between uses. That's a minimum of two cookies with overlapping timestamps right there, and only one person.
"3. This leaves us with sets of cookie IDs that could belong to the same person because they occur at different times, so we now look at IP addresses."
This isn't actually an operative step, or a test of any kind. It's just a numbered paragraph.
"4. We know some IP addresses cannot be shared by one person. These are the ones that would require a person to move faster than possible. If we have one IP address in New York, then one in Tokyo 60 minutes later, we know it can't be the same person because you can't get from New York to Tokyo in one hour."
FFS, has this guy ever touched a computer? For someone writing on technology he's pretty fucking out of touch. As an example, what about people who commonly telnet+lynx, VMWare or PCAnywhere, right across the world, hundreds of times in their workday? Sure, maybe most normal users don't (yet), but for some sites (eg, nerd-heavy sites like
"5. This leaves us with those IP addresses that can't be eliminated on the basis of geography. We now switch emphasis. Instead of looking for proof of difference, we now look for combinations which indicate it's the same person. These are IP addresses we know to be owned by the same ISP or company."
Except that one ISP can serve as many as hundreds of thousands of users. And proxy gateways often report one IP for all the users connected to them. For example, NTL reports one "gateway" IP for all the people in my town on cable-modems - that's thousands, minimum. So, we're looking at a potential error magnitude of 100-100,000. That's no better than the existing system for assessing unique visitors.
"6. We can refine this test by going back over the IP address/Cookie combination. We can look at all the IP addresses that a cookie had. Do we see one of those addresses used on a new cookie? Do both cookies have the same User Agent? If we get the same pool
Re:uhm, what? (Score:2)
They use my machine to do it - I'll let them order one thing on my credit card while I'm watching, but I'm buggered if I'm giving them my login details to order as much stuff as they like <:-)
Re:uhm, what? (Score:2)
What about those of us who kill our cookies at the end of every session and who don't use Flash? How are they going to find out if it's me or someone else?
No cookies, no information. To them I'm a unique individual every single time. The only thing they could possibly track down would be information from cookies which already exist on my system from other sites and try to decipher that information.
Re:uhm, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
CPUID (Score:4, Funny)
Sending your PCs unique CPUID along with every HTTP request would be ideal for this. You could also group up websites and use this to track people across websites. It would be great for marketing and for law enforcement.
Oh, you all disabled your nice Intel CPUID? Why ever would you want to do that?
Re:CPUID (Score:2)
Re:CPUID (Score:4, Interesting)
no need for cpu id's when your entire system and its OS will generate a 128bit id for you. and give them out to "trusted" "partners".
remote attestation never sounded so good.
Re:CPUID (Score:2)
Which Linux distro does this? I'd like to avoid them.
Re:CPUID (Score:2)
Which Linux distro does hits? I'd like to avoid them.
What happens when the Linux distros that support custom HTTP happen to be the only Linux distros supported by your ISP's DHCP server? Once the major cable and telephone companies begin to require support for "Trusted" Computing before they'll give you an IP address, will you go back to dial-up to escape Trusted Network Connect [slashdot.org]?
Re:CPUID (Score:2)
Gentoo [gentoo.org] appears to be the distro leading the charge.
-
Re:77340 Upsidedown St (Score:2)
even if you managed to block the transfer, you just wouldn't be able to use that particular resource. and so the race begins to see if we meet our dystopian future or avert it... for a while until the "lobbyists" strike back.
Trusted HTTP and Trusted Network Connect (Score:2)
I wonder what they will think when they start getting impossible bit patterns, like 7734 and 6027734 and 5773857734?
If a site requires Trusted HTTP Extensions, you will get a 403 error instead of a page. If your ISP requires Trusted Network Connect, you will get a DHCP failure instead of an IP address. Alsee predicts that dystopia will arrive by 2015 [slashdot.org] unless we drum up a significant backlash among residential Internet users.
Re:CPUID (Score:1)
I understand that you are being ironic, but in fact, CPUID won't be a silver bullet either. These researchers are trying to calculate the amount of different persons visiting the site, not the amount of different CPU's.
Re:CPUID (Score:1)
Indeed, but generally I would say that 1 person = 1 cpu, apart from shared cpus such as in schools, web cafes and such. But I guess that a combination of IP address and Browser information can pretty much od that already.
OK, so what is really needed is a RFID implant - take yer CPUID with you, then software can really be licensed to a PERSON rather that a processor. Pay Amazon every time you click(tm) on a link(tm).
Re:CPUID (Score:4, Insightful)
Not really. I surf the internet at home and at school. I imagine I'm not alone. So I would be registered as two different people.
Indeed, but generally I would say that 1 person = 1 cpu, apart from shared cpus such as in schools, web cafes and such
You forgot "pretty much anyone who doesn't alive alone and has a computer with internet access at home." Let's not forget that tiny percentage of people (I know, most slashdotters visit slashdot while avoiding work, but there are people out there who have families that have more then one person using a single computer. It's crazy I know).
Re:CPUID (Score:2)
So a rough guess of
UNIQUE USERS = (UNIQUE IPS - REAL UNIQUE LOGINS)
Will be spot on across the average of the whole planet for all 2 billion websites.
Mmmm gota luv statistics. Averages are your friend.
UIP? (Score:5, Funny)
International Union of Private Wagons
Quimper, France - Pluguffan (Airport Code)
Ultimate Irrigation Potential
Uncovered Interest Parity
Undegraded Intake Protein
United International Pictures
Universidad Interamericana de Panamá
Unusual Interstitial Pneumonitis
Upgrade Improvement Program
Urinating In Public
User Interface Program
USIGS Interoperability Profile
Usual Interstitial Pneumonia of Liebow
Utilities Infrastructure Plan
Re:UIP? (Score:1)
Re:UIP? (Score:1)
Paraguayan Industrial Union
UCAR Intellectual Property
Unintended Pregnancies
Union Interparlementaire
Universal Immunization Program
University Interaction Program
Update In Progress
Urban Indicators Program
Utility Interface Panel...
Re:UIP? (Score:3, Informative)
Unique Individual? P???
Re:UIP? (Score:2)
Re:UIP? (Score:2)
Re:UIP? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:UIP? (Score:2)
Re:UIP? (Score:2)
Step 4. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
If my company had computers in New York and Tokyo, I could ssh between them in much less than 60 minutes. . .
Re:Step 4. . . (Score:2)
What percentage of people do you think do that?
Assumption is valid for 95% cases. (Score:2)
The only way this might break is if a large number of people are sitting behind a proxy/cache. But if it is the case they have fallbacks.
Re:Assumption is valid for 95% cases. (Score:2)
Web accelerator (Score:2)
The majority of users behind "web accelerator" proxies do not know how to delete cookies. Or if you're really anal you could impose "free reg. req." on all users behind such proxies.
Re:Step 4. . . (Score:2)
The point is, most people wouldn't do that, and those who do wouldn't be significant to skew the metrics too badly.
However, having said that, it is quite possible to have a network configured for high availability such as that if you lose your local internet link traffic gets routed via your internal network out another internet link in another office. Frequently this office is in another country
Re:Step 4. . . (Score:2)
Even more frequently your "internal" link to the remote office is via VPN over your local link, so this isn't really an option. Redundant local links are more likely.
Re:Step 4. . . (Score:2)
Re:Step 4. . . (Score:2)
Re:Step 4. . . (Score:2)
Re:Step 4. . . (Score:2)
Field test (Score:2, Funny)
I'm glad it isn't Rocket Science (Score:4, Interesting)
So you can use probabilistic means to identify unique visitors. That's not a paradigm shift, except for those whose paradigms are already very small.
Somehow I don't think this research is worthy of an NDA.
Re:I'm glad it isn't Rocket Science (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't mean to be a poo poo here, but this isn't as huge a deal as the author has made it sound (i.e. it certainly is not a "paradigm shift").
Instead, what we have here is an evolutionary suggestion in how we can track users more accurately. Kudos.
As with all solutions in CS, there are problems. As the parent has correctly observed, this doesn't solve the "multiple browsers, same user" problem (which is common -- you probably use a different computer at work than at home). I am not cer
Re:I'm glad it isn't Rocket Science (Score:2)
Computers, that might be a larger percentage. But even then more tests could be done. Message boards you distract youself with at work that have a login-system which sets an everlast
Re:I'm glad it isn't Rocket Science (Score:2)
Whats the new definiation of privacy these days? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure what the Flash is, but to me, scanning all the cookies your computer has had IS privacy intrusive.
Re:Whats the new definiation of privacy these days (Score:2)
When you visit my site, you agree to download and run a Flash/ActiveX control that downloads all your cookies to slashdot.org, and then sends them to me, so that I can now present false credentials to slashdot.org to make it think that I have auto-login privledges.
Awesome design flaw there, but I highly doubt anyone is THAT stupid to put THAT big of a security flaw into a system.
Too much faith in humanity? (Score:5, Informative)
Read the article, and the guy is proposing to build exactly that kind of a security flaw into the system.
Flash can use, basically, some local shared storage on your hard drive. This isn't really designed as cookie storage, and doesn't have even the meager safeguards that cookies have. (E.g., being tied only to a domain.) It's really a space that _any_ flash applet can read and write, and currently noone (with half a clue) puts any important data there.
This guy's idea? Basically, "I know, let's store cookies there, precisely _because_ any other flash applet, e.g., our own again from a different page, can read that back again."
Caveat: so can everyone else. I could make a simple flash game that grabs everything stored there, just as you described, and sends it back to me. Including, yes, your session id (so, yes, I can take over your session in any site you were logged in, including any e-commerce sites or your bank) and anything else they stored there.
Since it's used to track your movements through sites, depending how clueless that's programmed, I may (or may not) also be able gather all sorts of other information about you.
So in a nutshell his miracle solution is to build _exactly_ that kind of a vulnerability (not to mention privacy leak) into the system.
So, well, that's the problem with assuming that "noone could be THAT stupid". Invariably when I say that, someone kindly offers himself as living proof that I'm wrong. Soneone CAN be that stupid.
Re:Whats the new definiation of privacy these days (Score:1)
In this case I think the "Flash" being referred to is Macromedia's Flash plugin. He's not very clear though is he?
Adjusting Macromedia Flash Settings (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/e
For Firefox (Score:2)
Get it because it'll make you cool like everyone else (Go Go Gadget Peer Pressure!), keep it because you don't miss the ads and just one click brings up any content you do want, as well as whitelist features.
Protect yourself from this new menace (Score:2)
Besides, what steps does Flash take to ensure that any old web site can't just reset these permissions, or except itself to the 'no local storage' policy you set?
Don't bother visiting Macromedia's site at all:
find / -name libflashplayer.so -o -name libflashplayer.xpt -exec rm {} \;
If you really can't live without it, try this instead:
chmod --recursive 500
What's new about this? (Score:1)
Paradigm shift ? (Score:3, Insightful)
No kidding. This guy probably needs a wake up call.
We know some IP addresses cannot be shared by one person. These are the ones that would require a person to move faster than possible. If we have one IP address in New York, then one in Tokyo 60 minutes later, we know it can't be the same person because you can't get from New York to Tokyo in one hour.
Ok, so this is what normally is called a really stupid argumentation. I don't say that it can't be accounted for, but stating such a thing is nothing more than plain stupidity. Has this guy ever heard about that Internet thing ?
Flash can report to the system all the cookies a machine has held.
Uhmm, not a great argument to make people use it.
No one wants to know.
I don't think they don't want to know. They just don't want to see a sudden drop of ~50% of their user count from a day to the other. And it really doesn't matter if it's the truth or not. A drop is a drop.
Re:Paradigm shift ? (Score:2)
Replace the word "they" with "companies that are deriving revenue from web traffic." This guy makes his money from selling analytics software so that companies can track the success of thier web sites and based on tracking, make modifications, sell advertising, marketing, and so forth.
Seeing a 30-50%
Privacy (Score:3)
The only mention of the word "privacy" on the linked web page is the term "Privacy Policy" at the bottom of the page.
John.
crap again. (Score:4, Insightful)
" We know some IP addresses cannot be shared by one person. These are the ones that would require a person to move faster than possible. If we have one IP address in New York, then one in Tokyo 60 minutes later, we know it can't be the same person because you can't get from New York to Tokyo in one hour."
Everheard of ssh and similar tools to make that travel?
And they put this on slashdot. Ignorance, just pure ignorance...
Re:crap again. (Score:1)
Re:crap again. (Score:2)
Re:Proof (Score:2)
Still doesn't help deleted cookies (Score:5, Insightful)
In the end there is no way they can even mostly recognize repeat web site visitors if the VISITOR DOESN'T WANT THEM TO.
The big problem is stated at the top of the article:
"We need to identify unique users on the web. It's fundamental. We need to know how many people visit, what they read, for how long, how often they return, and at what frequency. These are the 'atoms' of our metrics. Without this knowledge we really can't do much."
If knowing who unique users are is that important they need to create a reason for the user to correctly identify themselves. Some form of incentive that makes it worth giving up an identification for.
Re:Still doesn't help deleted cookies (Score:2)
The less effort it takes too make an account/log in will require less incentive. Please go through as few steps as possible, with log-in and account creatons on the same page as a reply box. Having that reply box on the same page is nice too. Go and read up on [http: [wikipedia.org]
Re:Still doesn't help deleted cookies (Score:2)
So... radio doesn't exist?
Tragically flawed (Score:5, Insightful)
That is of course complete nonsense. Let's say we accept the author's assertion that different studies have given cookie deletion rates across that range. I can accept that a significant number of users might delete cookies at some point, but what percentage of normal, non-geek, non-tinfoil-hat-wearing users are deleting cookies between page requests to a single site in a single session? If it is 30%, then I will eat my hat.
Most cookie deletion amoung the general populace will be being done automatically by anti-spyware software and is not done in realtime.
The author clearly knows that even the most primitive of tools also use other metrics to group page requests into sessions, so even if 30% of users were deleting cookies, it would not result in a 30% inaccuracy.
Of course "researchers propose more complex heuristic that looks to be slightly more accurate than current pracice" does not make as good a story as "paradigm shift" blah blah "blows out of the water" blah blah "We've been off by at least 30 percent, maybe more." blah blah.
Re:Tragically flawed (Score:2)
Re:Tragically flawed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Tragically flawed (Score:2)
For conversions taking longer than 7 days, you are generally looking at products with high 'consideration' (to use marketing speak), such as expensive consumer products or travel. These people do have problems when relying on cookies. Not to downplay their pain, but they hardly make up the majority (in number, not dollars) of online
Re:Tragically flawed (Score:2)
Um, nope. Can't happen. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's only so much you can do to track users.
IP address, user agent, some javascript stuff for cookieless tracking.. the only real "unique" identifiers for any one visitor. It stops there.
Of course, using exploits in flash doesn't count, but supposedly this new method is "not intrusive."
I call BS because it simply can't happen.
If a user doesn't wanna be tracked, they won't be tracked. This story is just press, free advertisement, and hype for this particular company.
Re:Um, nope. Can't happen. (Score:5, Funny)
Whoa, whoa...let's not fly off the handle here! We don't know that they didn't pay anything.
Sounds like voodoo to me... (Score:2)
Paradigm shift ?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Paradigm shift ?!? (Score:3, Informative)
Oblig Dr. Evil Quote: [about his new "laser"] You see, I've turned the moon into what I like to call a... "Death Star".
We've been using improoved method for years... (Score:1)
and are already tired explaining customers, why the unique visitors differ from ther built-in log-file analysis.
See CheckEffect [checkeffect.at] for details.
Some additional steps. (Score:3, Interesting)
Some of the identifiers they haven't used are linkage on the site. If one page links to another, it might be the same user, if the pages are called in sequence.
On top of links "time" might be applied. Some links are expected to be clicked fast, others after some reading on the page.
Some may argue that linkage is what you want to determine in the following analysis, and can't therefore be used to determine the use in advance, but this is not true. The determination of the user uniqueness looks to see if its possible for the user to get from one page to an other, while the analysis want to determine if they did it.
Haven't we learned anything from the Simpsons? (Score:1)
I mean, seriously folks-- there is a reason why these things are mocked.
More than just cookies (Score:3, Informative)
ROI is mentioned, along with the 'atoms' of their metrics: page hit count, popular URL count, URL dwell time, and returning visitors. When these metrics are used to produce reports, how valuable are these reports in ascertaining how ROI is affected by said metrics? For example, getting a neat funnel report of the path people take through a site and where the traffic drops off offers insight into popular paths and locations where people bail out, but apart from listening for errors, there is no further insight into why a person bailed.
What seems to be missing is gathering insightful information into what transpires while someone is on a particular page. I'd like to know the general trends in behavior [whitefrost.com], not just the server requests. I've found it more useful to be able to see the interactions with the content than reporting where people enter, traverse, and exit a site.
firebire v1.12 random user agent plugin (Score:2)
Cutting edge? ha! (Score:3, Insightful)
"If the same cookie is present on multiple visits, it's the same person. We next sort our visits by cookie ID"
Only after that they seem to continue the analys ("We know some IP addresses cannot be shared by one person. These are the ones that would require a person to move faster than possible", etc)
Thus turning off or regulary removing cookies will render their bleeding cutting edge technology useless? And how are cookies a 'breakthrought'?. Their only alternative to this seems to be;
You can also throw Flash Shared Objects (FSO) into the mix. FSOs can't replace cookies, but if someone does support FSO you can use FSOs to record cookie IDs.
I don't know what the fuzz is about
This is just basic logic, which any decent programmer should be able to come up with, even the M$ certified ones.
The Meat of the Article (Score:4, Informative)
Each of these steps is applied in order:
1. If the same cookie is present on multiple visits, its the same person.
2. We next sort our visits by cookie ID and look at the cookie life spans. Different cookies that overlap in time are different users. In other words, one person cant have two cookies at the same time.
3. This leaves us with sets of cookie IDs that could belong to the same person because they occur at different times, so we now look at IP addresses.
4. We know some IP addresses cannot be shared by one person. These are the ones that would require a person to move faster than possible. If we have one IP address in New York, then one in Tokyo 60 minutes later, we know it cant be the same person because you cant get from New York to Tokyo in one hour.
5. This leaves us with those IP addresses that cant be eliminated on the basis of geography. We now switch emphasis. Instead of looking for proof of difference, we now look for combinations which indicate its the same person. These are IP addresses we know to be owned by the same ISP or company.
6. We can refine this test by going back over the IP address/Cookie combination. We can look at all the IP addresses that a cookie had. Do we see one of those addresses used on a new cookie? Do both cookies have the same User Agent? If we get the same pool of IP addresses showing up on multiple cookies over time, with the same User Agent, this probably indicates the same person.
7. You can also throw Flash Shared Objects (FSO) into the mix. FSOs cant replace cookies, but if someone does support FSO you can use FSOs to record cookie IDs. This way Flash can report to the system all the cookies a machine has held. In addition to identifying users, you can use this information to understand the cookie behavior of your flash users and extrapolate to the rest of your visitor population.
Re:The Meat of the Article (Score:2)
I don't know. Switching proxies from one in New York to one in Tokyo takes me certainly less than 60 minutes...
But I guess no method can be perfect.
Typical web analysis junk (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is with the word "accurate". To management, "accurate statistics" means knowing exactly how many conscious human beings looked at the site during a given period. However, the computer cannot measure this. What it can measure, accurately, is the number of HTML requests during a given period.
You can use the latter number to estimate the former number. But because this estimate is effected by a multitude of factors like spiders, proxies, bugs, etc., management will say "these stats are clearly not accurate!". You can try to filter out the various "undesirable" requests, but the results you'll get will vary chaotically with the filters you use. The closer you get to "accurate" stats from the point of view of management, the further you'll be from "accurate" stats from a technical point of view.
Makers of web analysis software and services address these problems by the simple of technique of "lying". In fact, a whole industry has built up based on the shared delusion that we can accurately measure distinct users.
Which is where this article comes in. The author has discovered the shocking, shocking fact that the standard means of measuring distinct users are total bollocks. He's discovered that another technique produces dramatically different results. He's shocked, shocked, appalled in fact, that the makers of web analysis software are not interested in this new, highly computationally-intensive technique that spits out lower numbers.
My advice? Instead of doing costly probability analysis on your log files, just multiple your existing user counts by 0.7. The results will be just as meaningful and you can go home earlier.
make that .75 dude - the real answer (Score:2)
Seriously, whats important REALLY is not the current statitic total for NOW, or TODAY,
its.... yes... TRENDS!!!
that PAGE X is increasing by 6% weekly.
or that page y is dropping in interest.
Its just like TV ratings, everyone knows its all CRAP and nonsense, except the DELTAS, the changes
if TV show X is going up 30% week, you know its HOT.
Think of it like qantum physics, you dont really know the location of the electron, just its DIRECTION. TIME CANNOT STAND STILL.
DIRECTION of MOTION is what you want whi
You misunderstood the problem COMPLETELY (Score:2)
But that's not the problem.
Whenever you see someone going on about how the _need_ to track and identify each user, and they _need_ accurate numbers and even personal details... that's your clue that it's purely an ad mo
Then it was managements fault.. (Score:2)
Bull (Score:1)
And when you read down to how these "new, cutting edge methodologies" actually work, it comes down to: plant cookies, if that doesn't tell you what you need to know, look at the IP address. Then take into account that different cookies and different IP addresses can still be the same user, if they occur at different times.
It's clever, b
Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm personally always more interested in how many pages get requested, and which ones. The first gives me an impression of how popular the site is*, the second tells me which pages people particularly like, so I can add more like that.
The only reason I see for really wanting to track people is if your site is actually an app that has state. In those cases, you have to use a more bullet-proof system than the one presented in TFA.
* Some people object that it counts many people who visit once, then never again; but I consider it a success that they got there in the first place - they were probably referred by someone, followed a link that someone made, or the page ranks high in a search engine.
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Tracking the success of an advertising campaign. Ad-buyers want to get thier message out to eyeballs and they want to message to as many eyeballs as often as possible for their target demographic. Picking sites in their demographic is easy and they know how to do that. Picking a site that drives enough unique traffic is much more difficult.
I would expect, though I don
One method to reliably track users... (Score:2)
Comparative (Score:2)
For instance, considering everything else to be equal, an ad buyer wanting to pay $1 for one thousand unique eyeballs won't care whether it's spent at site A or site B, as long as they are using equivalent methods to measure traffic.
Another example. Say Google puts out a press release saying they have X
Re:Comparative (Score:2)
Most stats software out there agree basically with what is measured and what variables to use. To vary in the amount you are talking about, it'd require huge deviations in measuring variables. Again, this comes down to variables, not what is commonly accepted ways of measuring (which the article was referring to).
Using different variable values, inaccuracies can arise from any system, even with what the article was proposing as ways to measure traffic more accurately.
What I'm saying is, considering
What about patterns in the requests themselves? (Score:2)
What about people following a link with a referer from page A to page C when they haven't (according to your logs) been on page A? Doesn't this likely indicate page A has been cache
How do we know it's accurate? (Score:2)
So how do you determine if your methodology is accurate? The fact that preliminary tests give you different answers than traditional methods doesn't really tell us anything. It just informs us that two different methods present two different results.
This "new paradim" is full of poor assumptions (Score:2)
Missing behavior (Score:2)
Crapola. (Score:2)
The only thing gained by uniquely identifying users outside of financial transactions is the opportunity to violate their privacy.
I defy the "new" methodology to uniquely identify me on jrandomwebsite.com -- I block cookies until I know t
Re:yeah well ... (Score:1)
Re:UIP = (Score:2)
Thanks for that,
I was already wondering where the pictures were for "Uniquely Inserted Probes", as this article seems to be announced as such a big breakthrough.
Re:What the fuck is "UIP hit"? (Score:2)
they could have use
http : : / /
but DUH... get a clue. Get a web page for dummies hand guide man.
Re:Want efficiency? (Score:2)
They tattooed ordinary figures, not barcodes. Photo [cnn.com]
Re:SSL Session ID (Score:2)