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Keeping it local

In an effort to minimize data harvesting by Google (and others), and potential issues with GDPR and similar regulations, code for Google Analytics and Google Adsense has been removed from all active Web applications provided by Abiro, including CliqTags.

As a customer to CliqTags you can still add a Google Analytics tag to any of your mobile sites like before, but that’s up to you, and it’s also up to you to inform your visitors about that.

We still use Google Maps and Google Charts in a number of applications. Users can choose to not activate location for maps, avoiding tracking that way, but Google Maps is claimed to harvest much more information than location. Supposedly Google Charts doesn’t harvest sensitive information based on the actual use.

We will consider replacing these features with alternatives like OpenStreetMap etc.

In cases applications will collect data, again not the least CliqTags, but if so they will store it locally to the application and not send it to a third party. A customer can only see their own data.

Also, we don’t use AddThis (a well-known data harvester) on public-facing sites. Customers to CliqTags can choose to use AddThis for sharing on mobile sites though. Meta Pixel is not used anywhere.


Update 2023-07-07

Here’s an article in Swedish highlighting the fact that Google Analytics, Meta Pixel etc are outright illegal within EU:

Google Analytics är väldigt olagligt: “Ingen överraskning”

The article mentions Matomo as a more secure solution that can run locally, but there’s also a premium cloud option and a free WordPress plugin.


Update 2023-08-09

Oracle, that owns AddThis, recently shut it down. That affected CliqTags that optionally provides sharing. We are looking for a replacement.

Notice of Termination of AddThis Services.

One can only wonder why they didn’t clean out the data-hoarding aspects. Maybe this was the easy way out instead of getting sued by EU.