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Comment by markovbot | Hacker News Reader

Wow, sneaking Google Analytics into an extension like this? Some people really have no morals

Here we are discussing how to steal content and you make that comment about a developer who is giving you something for free? Wow, some people really have no perspective.

You're right, I should be thankful for free spyware. my bad

So sad for the journalists involved, who have to rewrite their article every time someone steals it.

It's the police that have spend that time to apprehend and return the stolen articles that I have most concern for, they surely have better things to do.

I'm pouring one out for the researchers who have to rerun all their experiments and rewrite +republish their entire papers every time I click a link on scihub.

How is taking control of your browser considered stealing? Would it also be against some unwritten rule to use a black and white monitor?

That's rather uncharitable. They most likely just want to get some usage data. It's ignoring the privacy concerns that come with GA, which isn't great, but saying they have no morals is more than a stretch.

Then they should read comments on the extension page lol, not spy on people.

Google Analytics is not spyware, it just counts users, OSes, browsers, page views. It doesn't identify users personally ( you could if you knew the only person with a Chromebook in a city, but that's about as granular as it could get).

As can be seen by any statistic - be it the download/rate/comment ratios on any of the mobile app stores, or the Chrome extension stores, the vast majority of users will stay silent. Wanting to know a tiny bit about them is understandable.

It's naive to think that Google - an advertising company whose business model depends on stalking every one - would offer such an advanced tool for free if it wasn't spyware.

They never embedded GA in the Firefox extension, just on Chrome and explained it by their assumption that chrome users probably aren't as opposed to Google tracking as those using Firefox.

Probably the only reason I remember it is because it felt like such a peculiar justification.

The other extension got some pretty shady backers on HN in the past as well. [1] I think that this kind of extension just attracts drama more than others.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22482804

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