Quantcast Subdomain Tracking: breach of privacy?

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   jubiladayposted 12 years ago

   Here's something interesting for those of you wary of sharing your personal data & stats with other users.
   
   Each of our personal subdomains is now displayed on quantcast. Case in point: Paul Edmondson's page visits.
   
   Section 2d of the Hubpages privacy policy says that information may be 'used to monitor aggregate metrics such as total number of visitors and traffic' but there is no mentioned of single visitor stats being displayed.
   
   I believe this would  be considered a breach of privacy and hope that Hubpages removes the codes that allow this information to be publicly available.

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      earnestshubposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I wrongly attributed this initiative to Eric, so allow me to correct this and thank you for bringing this to the attention of hubpages which has resulted in the desired outcome.

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         AEvansposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I knew they would correct it to.

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   Eric Graudinsposted 12 years ago

   It would appear that this is a gross breach of privacy for those who use their real name to post on Hub Pages.
   
   Yet I understand that HubPages have refused point blank to allow people to change their real names to one that is non identifiable.
   
   I would welcome an explanation from Hub Pages management to explain how the publication of detailed statistics for such a hub pages user is NOT a breach of privacy.
   
   And the fact that it is Quantcast not Hubpages that provides this information is irrelevant, because HubPages has authorised Quantcast to compile this information and make it available.

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   earnestshubposted 12 years ago

   Holy exposure batman! Some of our best contributors use their own name!
   
   Has anyone asked the hubpages staff the direct question yet?

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      Eric Graudinsposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      About changing their own name?
      Yes, they have.
      
      And the answer was no.

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   waynetposted 12 years ago

   Yes, this is a bit too much...I wonder why they've approved this...ah well it's their site, I've got sites to build and control on my own, busy busy busy like a bee on acid with no pants on...

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      lrohnerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Wayne -- It may be THEIR site, but they are YOUR private stats -- at least 60% of them anyway.
      
      BTW, glad to see you've got a little uptick in pageviews going. It's not much, but I hope it lasts for you. With 617 hubs, though, I'm surprised you're not getting more traffic than you are, as you're averaging less than 2 pageviews per hub per day. Yesterday, you only had 1,000 global pvs and 583 from the US. Hope things get better for you. I'll be keeping an eye out and crossing my fingers!

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         waynetposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Yeah lol...half of my hubpages are the crap ones I started off with in my first year. will re-write them if things pick up and remain in traffic, but my own sites are the priority for this year and the next.

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   LuisEGonzalezposted 12 years ago

   The downside to subdomains is that they are treated as a website
   Ex; hubpages.com = luisegonzalez . hubpages.com and Quantcast is allowed by HP to post information about the website (luisegonzalez . hubpages.com), although the information is relevant to number of visits, geographical data etc. No personal information is displayed, albeit with some of the subdomain names (like mine) it would not take much for some unsavory characters to use this for shady purposes.

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   psycheskinnerposted 12 years ago

   I don't see that Hubpages has released any information here.  I looks like information anyone could scrape if they wanted to. Sites like this have been around for years. Now we have subdomains we will appear on them and the data is not more private than what is planted in your front garden.

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      lrohnerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Incorrect. HubPages HAS released this information willingly. They have signed up with the Quantcast service to track data by adding code similar to Analytics.
      
      There are other services, such as Compete, that estimate traffic to various websites, but those estimates are usually off by 50% or more. By giving Quantcast permission to track our individual data, they are releasing actual traffic stats, and that is not something someone can "scrape."

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   thisisoliposted 12 years ago

   Ironher is right, by including the code snippet on our Hubs quantcast is making our traffic levels, keywords, and business demeographs public knowledge, not happy about this as it leaves me wide open to someone stealing my niches and keywords.
   
   Without the code snippet Quantcast can only display guestimates at data.

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      Jason Menayanposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Where are you seeing keywords displayed, Oli?

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      Dolores Monetposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Ha ! Checked my own self and saw that I needed to give Quantcast permission to display my subdomain. As I always like to think things over a bit, I did not. Being a bit paranoid after having way too many hubs copied and getting sick of filing DCMA's, I am laying low.

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   Jason Menayanposted 12 years ago

   EDIT: We're aware of this. Our current setup is similar to Wordpress and Tumblr: subdomains aren't findable through quantcast.com/hubpages.com (we disabled that) but if you know the subdomain, you can find it.
   
   We will be deciding if we want to remove the Quantcast tag entirely, which is what would be necessary for every subdomain to be untraceable.

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      thooghunposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Damn, I was actually enjoying the idea of subdomain tracking personally. Nevertheless, I understand the concerns. As always well done on being speedy, it never ceases to amaze

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      Mark Ewbieposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      That's a relief.  Let me know when it's done then I can go back to writing my "How I Got to Be so Successful" pages.

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         thooghunposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks for the laugh

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      Eric Graudinsposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Jason,
      Your response here indicates to me that you didn't have a clue about the tracking until this thread was posted.
      
      OK, so some people think the ability to track their traffic is a good thing.
      Some of the others who use their real names on Hub Pages are quite alarmed.
      
      Seeing that this issue is entirely due to factors that did not exist when the user names were originally chosen, I'll repeat my previous question - which you have ignored.
      
      Why won't you allow people to change their user names, given this drastic change in the way the Hub Pages is operating?
      
      You could then reinstate the quantcast monitoring for the rest of your domain.

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   Stacie Lposted 12 years ago

   I'm not an IT specialist and I'm willing to listen and learn more
   I just starting reading the right side of this page and found this link to opt-out
   shouldn't this help?
   http://www.quantcast.com/how-we-do-it/c … ce/opt-out

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      Jason Menayanposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      That's for keeping your personal browsing data inaccessible for Quantcast's aggregate statistics.

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         Stacie Lposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         so isn't that a good thing?

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            Jason Menayanposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Sure, if you don't want your data to be used in those aggregate statistics. Like, for example, if you visit about.com 10x per month, those 10 visits will not show up in About.com's Quantcast statistics.
            
            They do not show PII (personally-identifiable information) about any particular visitor, only aggregate figures.

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    IzzyMposted 12 years ago

    I actually quite liked seeing my stats on there, but I especially liked seeing how well or otherwise Hubpages were doing. If HP removes that data we will all be playing a guessing game.
    
    I don't know why some people are so against this data being shown, unless they've been telling porky pies all along about their views and earnings.

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       wildernessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       I'm with you, Izzy - I rather like being able to see my stats there.
       
       At the same time, though, if my keywords are so easily available that could be a problem.  It could also result in increased theft if anyone can easily find out how I'm doing.  (Hey, this guy has only 25 hubs and gets 1000 visits/day - they must be worth some copying here!)

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          IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Where do you click to see someone's keywords though? I haven't seen anything like that.
          
          And that second scenario about getting hundreds of hits with only 25 hubs is easily solved. Write more hubs until you have 100s. Make it harder for the thieves to guess which ones are doing well.

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             wildernessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             I don't know how to get the keywords and stuff - Thisisoli just posted above something about it being available.
             
             Write more hubs.  Yes, I should do that, and fully expect to if this kind of traffic continues.  I pretty much quit writing this year - just wasn't encouraged enough by continually falling traffic to put any effort into it.  Got some ideas going, though, and intend to get back into it.

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       lrohnerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       I think that's a bit unfair, Izzy. There are many, many reasons why I wouldn't want my data shown on Quantcast, and none of them have anything to do with telling porky pies.
       
       I understand why a site like HubPages as a whole would want their data shown, as it clearly shows accurate traffic stats to potential advertisers. I can also understand why people who are here only to write wouldn't care if their data is made public.
       
       But...for most small affiliate marketers, secrecy is the only way to survive. If a competitor smells success, they're all over you like bees on honey copying everything you do. Just ask Nelle or Ryan. They'll tell you.
       
       What galls me particularly about this move by HP is that many of us use our real names as our usernames. So not only are the stats made public, but they are personally identified with people's names. That, IMO, is a breach of HP's privacy policy. I am a bit surprised that they didn't at least ask or notify us, or allow us to at least switch user names. I know that Mark Knowles asked to change his username to something a bit more generic before making the switch, and the HP team flatly refused his request.
       
       Not cool. SO not cool.

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       lakeerieartistsposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Izzy, people do not want their hard work stolen because they are successful.
       
       If you want to see your stats, you can sign up for Google Analytics and see stats for free.

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          IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          So people only get their hard work stolen when someone sees their Quantcast stats??
          
          I don't think so. Plagiarism is alive and well on the net and has been for a long time.

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             Eric Graudinsposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             Curious jump of logic there, IzzyM.
             
             
             Yes, people get their hard work stolen even without these stats.
             
             But the ability to access those stats make it a hell of a lot easier to pinpoint the stuff that is worthwhile stealing.

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                IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                No it doesn't. I have 480 hubs more or less, and only a handful do well. Someone would need to copy them all to ensure they got the right ones.

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                   Eric Graudinsposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                   Well, the availability of data may not be an issue in your case.
                   
                   But someone with very high traffic levels and a small number of hubs may not agree with your assessment.

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                   sunforgedposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                   But, Eric only has 1... what if it was/is a high traffic hub?
                   
                   or many of us intentionally made niche profiles for our best earners.. 30-50 hubs, 2000+ hits daily on  the quantcast data.. pretty easy to see a goldmine
                   
                   That was dangerously public data.
                   
                   There is something to be said for security through obfuscation, but when we started our hub profiles we werent aware that our data may be compromised so easily and not all may have been properly secured.

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    waynetposted 12 years ago

    I have no problem about them showing my HP stats, but others will if they know that their traffic data is out there to scrutinize by the competition and that really is everyone out there to be honest...keeping stuff close to your chest in this game can be very useful that's why I've bought 18 domain names with privacy I don't want anyone knowing that they originate from me.

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       Stacie Lposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       you make a good point...

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    Mark Ewbieposted 12 years ago

    Given my persona is based around that of a hapless loser it would severely damage my credibility were people to see how fantastically successful I am.  Just grateful that my massive thing is now not visible to people.

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       Sally's Troveposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       I'm crazy about the art with which you practice humility.

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       lrohnerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Thanks for the visual. I think I'm blind now.

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    Sally's Troveposted 12 years ago

    This is clearly an issue of whether the TOS has been violated.
    
    I'm sure some Hubbers are attorneys...maybe you could shed some light on this, hypothetically speaking of course.

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    Jason Menayanposted 12 years ago

    Just a note: we've hidden all Quantcast data for HubPages, including those on subdomains. We're trying to get clarification from Quantcast if we can display only aggregate (site-wide) data only, but we'll keep data off until we find out.

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       Sally's Troveposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       With all due respect, knowing that you want to keep the community informed, it would be better for HP to terminate this thread, get the privacy issue resolved, and then come back with a policy statement.

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       jubiladayposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Thanks for the quick response Jason. Hopefully this issue will be resolved soon with a compromise that keeps both Hubpages and Members happy.

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          Jason Menayanposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Quantcast got back to us. They said it was a bug, and they're working on their end to resolve it. Once they've fixed it and by-subdomain stats are not visible, then we'll unhide our site stats on Quantcast.
          
          Thank you for your patience and understanding.

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             wildernessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             Thanks for the update, Jason - it is appreciated.  Sounds like it came out of the blue and was not expected.

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                Jason Menayanposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                Yes, we made the change to hide subdomains and didn't see it listed. We thought that took care of it, but apparently there was a workaround if you typed in the URL.

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                   wildernessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                   Yep.  And with this many hubbers someone somewhere is going to find most any workaround.  Oh well - can't see any harm done, and you guys got right on it.

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                      Jason Menayanposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                      ...and Quantcast has, too. They've enabled hiding of subdomain stats, so we've reeenabled site-wide traffic stats reporting now.

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                         IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                         I see stats are improving

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    LuisEGonzalezposted 12 years ago

    In light of this then a sensible step that should be taken by HubPages would be to allow hubbers to change their username to a more generic one. I didn't think much of it before but my username is my real name, and that has me concerned.

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       Jason Menayanposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       We don't allow users to change their usernames, although you can always close an account if you're concerned about your public persona and create a new one.

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    Eric Graudinsposted 12 years ago

    Wow.
    What an awesome response!
    Truly Terrific !!!
    
    
    So you're going to force those people to jump through yet another set of hoops if they have reasons for not being personally identified?
    Do you even understand the magnitude of what you are asking them to do? Especially those who have a significant number of hubs, and from whom you have derived substantial income over the years?
    
    They will have to remove, store, and republish all their hubs under a new name. And all their comments, etc. will be lost.
    
    Why don't HubPages management just realise that this is a valid issue for many people, and just allow people using their real names as users to change them?
    
    
    The friendly, helpful folk at HP never cease to amaze me!

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    Richieb799posted 12 years ago

    I quite like this, means I can spy on which hubbers are hyping up their performance, saying they earn loads
    
    :edit: just looked at one who is always hyping and they've hidden their data lol
    
    Fair enough, I'd like to hide my website domains on there since I wouldn't want competitors finding out my niche either

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       Eric Graudinsposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       If you read the posts above, you'll see that the ability to view this data has been disabled for everyone.
       
       LOL right back at you.

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          earnestshubposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Thanks Eric, Ya blood needs bottlin!
          
          You have done us all a great service in bringing this problem to an end.

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             Eric Graudinsposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             Not me Earnest. Thank the person who discovered the visibility of this data :-)

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          Richieb799posted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Didn't see that soz doesn't protect my websites though

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