[Foundation-l] Wikipedia tracks user behaviour via third party companies

[Robert Rohde]

On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 8:35 AM, Dan Rosenthal <swatjester at gmail.com> wrote:
> Installing Google Analytics, even for our own purposes, is a bad idea.
> For one, it creates a link to google that is not necessarily what we
> want; it would be a big target for people to try and hack, and it
> presents tempting security risks on Google's end.  Not to mention, as
> far as I know the program is proprietary.
<snip>

I may be misreading, but I believe Unionhawk's suggestion was to setup
-- but not install -- Google Analytics in the hope that simply
registering the accounts would block anyone else from creating an
Analytics account pointed at Wikipedia.  (I don't know if it actually
works that way.)

That strikes me as rather too much work though.  Better to block the
relevant URLs from being inserted in the first place.  That could be
accomplished in any one of several technical ways.

One idea is the proposal to install the AbuseFilter in a global mode,
i.e. rules loaded at Meta that apply everywhere.  If that were done
(and there are some arguments about whether it is a good idea), then
it could be used to block these types of URLs from being installed,
even by admins.

-Robert Rohde