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mmasonWD
Level 3
January 17, 2025
Solved

Capture anonymous data with Opt-in extension enabled

  • January 17, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 1247 views

If this is in the wrong sub, please let me know. 

 

How can we properly capture anonymous data when the Opt-in extension is enabled in Launch? When this is enabled, and users ignore our consent banner or decline, no beacons are sent for capturing anonymous data like site views and page visits. Is there a way for certain "anonymous" rules to override this and still send the beacon for data capturing?

Best answer by bjoern__koth

Hi @mmasonwd 

there is no real anonymous/cookieless tracking supported in AppMeasurement.

You could use a server-side call using the Data Insertion API, but even there you would need to create some kind of user identifier, e.g. based on the user's IP address and user agent.

 

My two cents

  • as long as Adobe does not support cookieless Analytics out of the box, the efforts to capture traffic from people who opted out is too big.
  • No means No. If the user has specified that he does not want to be tracked, then just respect that and don't do it by finding ways around it.
    The average internet user still thinks that his opt out means he won't be tracked. And even if this is not true, and consent banners are asking whether cookies can be placed to improve tracking quality, I still think his wrong view on things should be respected, and I typically tell this to my clients as well.
  • On top of that, if you have a Launch rule that has a condition exception that stops tracking requests, you will then (picking up the API calls) still work your way around and implement everthing server-side, leading to a huge extra overhead that is error prone and drastically increases further enhancements and maintenance work.

    We just have to live with the fact that ad blockers and users who don't want to be tracked exist and embrace the notion that Analytics data merely represents trends and no absolute values.

2 replies

bjoern__koth
Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
bjoern__kothCommunity Advisor and Adobe ChampionAccepted solution
Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
January 17, 2025

Hi @mmasonwd 

there is no real anonymous/cookieless tracking supported in AppMeasurement.

You could use a server-side call using the Data Insertion API, but even there you would need to create some kind of user identifier, e.g. based on the user's IP address and user agent.

 

My two cents

  • as long as Adobe does not support cookieless Analytics out of the box, the efforts to capture traffic from people who opted out is too big.
  • No means No. If the user has specified that he does not want to be tracked, then just respect that and don't do it by finding ways around it.
    The average internet user still thinks that his opt out means he won't be tracked. And even if this is not true, and consent banners are asking whether cookies can be placed to improve tracking quality, I still think his wrong view on things should be respected, and I typically tell this to my clients as well.
  • On top of that, if you have a Launch rule that has a condition exception that stops tracking requests, you will then (picking up the API calls) still work your way around and implement everthing server-side, leading to a huge extra overhead that is error prone and drastically increases further enhancements and maintenance work.

    We just have to live with the fact that ad blockers and users who don't want to be tracked exist and embrace the notion that Analytics data merely represents trends and no absolute values.
Cheers from Switzerland!
    M
    mmasonWDAuthor
    Level 3
    January 17, 2025

    Thanks for the reply. We from our end totally understand users not wanting to be tracked. What we were after are the bare minimums like page views, site visits, etc anonymously. I know there are workarounds, but yeah we can't find anything straightforward to capture the bare minimums if opt-in is enabled. 

    Jennifer_Dungan
    Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
    Jennifer_DunganCommunity Advisor and Adobe Champion
    Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
    January 17, 2025

    Technically though, opting out of tracking cookies... while you can't go cookieless, you can (or should be able to) prevent cookies from following the user..

     

    First, if the user opts out, you can opt them out of the ECID. There is permissions for this in the extension.

     

    Next however, in the absence of the ECID, Adobe will fall back to the old s cookies (s_vid, s_fid, etc)... but, there is a setting to force these to be session based... essentially, the user should get a "user id cookie" that will track them through the visit... however, once the session ends, those cookies should expire, and the next time the user comes to the site, they will get all new cookies with all new IDs... thereby preventing them from being followed / fingerprinted. 

     

    This should comply with a cookie opt-out policy. Now, if your opt-out specifically gives them to opt-out of tracking completely, this would be a problem... but if its just about following / identifying the user, this should meet the criteria.

      bjoern__koth
      Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
      bjoern__kothCommunity Advisor and Adobe Champion
      Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
      January 18, 2025

      Actually a good question whether this works for Web SDK as well.

       

      Also, have you ever seen your approach documented to be used in a Launch environment? Maybe we could document it here in the community somehow?

      Cheers from Switzerland!
        Jennifer_Dungan
        Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
        Jennifer_DunganCommunity Advisor and Adobe Champion
        Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
        January 18, 2025

        Good point... given that WebSDK is a newer tech, that came out since a lot of these privacy issues came into effect, you would think it should have the equivalent... 

         

        I am not sure if WebSDK even bothers with the old s cookies (likely not), and I believe the ECID settings are all part of the WebSDK extension, so it should have the opt-out controls there... 

         

        Like anything, it's best to test your setup in Dev, QA or Staging... While incognito won't work for this... you might want to use a browser that isn't your primary to test this out... that way, you can do a full cookie purge, then go to the site hit some pages, etc... record your ECID and any other identifiers... also make sure you can find these pages in Adobe (maybe add a campaign like ?cid=usertest1 or ?utm_source=usertest1 (something that you can easily segment to pull all the data from you). Then close the browser... a few hours later, go back, do some more testing...  check your ECID for this visit, make sure it's different... use another campaign ?cid=usertest2 or ?utm_source=usertest2

         

        When you go check your data, make sure that Adobe sees these two tests as different users... 1 UVs, or 2 "people" if you have CJA / Device Stitching.. etc.

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