These past years I’ve grown to be more privacy-aware. And while this post isn’t about how I’m increasing my personal privacy, I’d like to talk about how I’m increasing yours.
My website had three services integrated:
- Google Analytics gave me insights into how much people read my content and what topics were popular to write about.
- Google Adsense showed ads underneath every blog post and enabled me to monetize my content. With this I received two payments (70.84 euro in 2019 and 74.20 euro in 2020), covering the expenses for my domain name for about 14 years.
- Disqus comments allowed people to comment on my content, but since I didn’t pay for the service Disqus was also serving advertisements.
And while these services were adding some value to my website, they were doing so at the cost of your privacy. By default (!!!), they not only track your interaction with my website, but also detailed information about you (gender, age, approximate location,…) and they even track you across different websites.
But should I really be collecting all that data about you?
Should I really hand off all that data to those services?
Have I ever asked your consent about any of this?
Well, I no longer believe it is “normal” for websites or products to engage in these practices. That every experience needs to be personalized. Or that we should give away our privacy so easily.
Therefore I’ve decided to strip all such services. Now my website is a safe space where you can enjoy (hopefully) my content without worrying about advertisements or tracker blockers.
However, I do still care about your opinion!
So moving forward you can:
- Let me know you’ve read this by liking one of my social posts
- Talk about my content on Reddit or Hacker News
- Send me feedback/questions on Mastodon
You’re in full control whether you decide to reach out or not!
I’ll keep doing my best to provide you with interesting content (which is a ton of work) and hence appreciate every single like or shoutout.
Wrap-up#
My website is now fully tracker and advertisement free, I’ll do my best to guarantee your privacy moving forward.
If this was helpful to you, please let me know on Mastodon!
