

Ask HN: I removed every cookie from my blog, because Cookie Law. Am I wrong? - trumbitta2

As some of you may know, in the coming days the infamous Cookie Law will begin to reap souls in Europe and Italy (I&#x27;m based in Italy, so...)<p>I could have added an ugly and invasive banner, plus a convoluted privacy policy to my poor little blog [1]. I should have.<p>Instead, at some point during preparations, I decided to get rid of all cookies and cookie-placing services.<p>Because I&#x27;m angry at those bureaucrats who would want me to have a privacy policy because I use Disqus as a commenting system.<p>So I got rid of:<p>- Disqus, and I am thinking of opening a Facebook Page where I will repost articles from the blog and allow commenters to do their thing<p>- ConvertKit, and I am done with drip email marketing<p>- Gumroad iframe, and instead I have now direct links to Gumroad<p>- BootstrapCDN, and I now serve bootstrap and fontawesome by myself<p>This leaves me bitter and angry, but I think I&#x27;m doing the right thing.<p>What about you?<p>[1] My uninteresting blog: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.williamghelfi.com&#x2F;
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logn
You run a technical blog. If it makes you feel any better my browser is
configured to block all the content you removed anyhow. And I suspect lots of
your readers are like me.

I am glad to see the pendulum shift in favor of consumers and privacy,
although the libertarian side of me makes me question the need for more laws
dictating how businesses behave.

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tobylane
How do you usually deal with those two somewhat opposing views?

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logn
On an issue-by-issue basis.

In this case I'd want the regulations to apply to Google, Apple, Mozilla, and
MS web browsers (only) and force those browsers to display a boilerplate
notice about cookies when they're detected... rather than putting the burden
on the much larger set of end websites and API providers.

In general there's not a permanent way to reconcile consumer rights with
business rights. One thing that would help a lot is to restrict/ban money in
politics so that at least each side of the debate has a more equal voice.
Although in this case the side without money won.

Personally I guess my outlook is that of a moderate... or maybe a left-leaning
libertarian.

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vortico
Does hosting your website elsewhere fix the problem? I'm not familiar with the
details of the law, but I'd be interested to find out if this fixes your
problem.

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trumbitta2
AFAIK, nope

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fegu
I want to go this route as well, but I am addicted to Google analytics. Any
other services people can recommend?

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hoverbear
Grep your server logs! There are open source analytic tools available as well
like [http://piwik.org/](http://piwik.org/) .

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fsk
+1 for piwik

IIRC, piwik works two ways. One with a tracking cookie like Google Analytics.
Another is with a tracking pixel on every page. (When they load the pixel, it
registers a pageview.)

