Present state
As of 30May2022 I seem to have had no cross-site trackers, after the change described below. Disclaimer: I cannot say for sure that deactivating this plugin was the reason for this change.
Cross-site tracking
I see that there are both valid functional (like keeping me logged in across pages) and valid economic (example below) incentives for doing cross-tracking.
What concerns me is the n’th part in this, where the responsibility and visibility seem to vanish somewhat. I guess that’s why the browsers now allow a user to entirely stop cross-site tracking.
But I don’t envy SW developers a salary! So there certainly are sides to this.
Like, in the case of the below mentioned WordPress plugin, should the user get cross-site tracking attempted on actively pressing a button, or should we all get cross-site tracked by the simple fact that there is a button on my pages? (To be cont..) Response:
Update 3Jun2022. I did get a comment from the ShareThis on the above paragraph. They have been very responsive and helpful. I’d rush to say that this is not a case about their plugin as such, but it would represent most plugins and and web pages, I’d assume. Their response:
«WRT: While we do track interactions with the share buttons themselves for share count analytics, we also track users pseudo-anonymously through cookies, but also provide mechanisms for them to opt-out. Furthermore, we honor privacy laws like GDPR and in those countries, we will not track a user without consent. You may also review our Privacy Policy and our Publisher’s Terms of Use.»
(..cont.:) And for the plugin companies to get their salary they cannot sell their plugins as such. I don’t even pay! They have to sell their pages to somebody who’s willing to pay. This is not simple. I am lucky enough to only have to ask the questions. But I do see that they might be difficult to answer!
No cross-site tracking?
This page is referred to at Privacy Policy.
In Norwegian
The Apple macOS Safari browser has since 2017 been able to stop cross-site tracking (explained here). I assume other browsers may allow the same. I was surprised to see that even my WordPress site seems to add sw that tries to do this! Even a long time after I had disabled Google Analytics.
| User | Seen | Gone | Comment / cause? |
| facebook.net | 28May2022 | 30May2022 | Simple Share Buttons Adder plugin 28May2022 deactivated |
| sharethis.com | 28May2022 | 30May2022 | –»– |
| google-analytics.com | 7Jun2022 | Seen «last 30 days» (so would go to 7May, before this note) | |
| google.com | 7Jun2022 | 17Oct2022 | —-»—- |
| google-analytics.com | 17Oct2022 | I probably still have a not with ref to it |
Zero point zero
My goal is zero cross-site tracking on teigfam.net. I can see absolutely no reason why anybody, ie. myself, WordPress, any WordPress plugin author company or any other third party be allowed to store information on us after we have been here, onto other sites. Well, this has several sides to it, as mentioned above, and here:
It seemed like removing the Simple Share Buttons Adder plugin helped. Their PRIVACY page (here, bottom right green field to press) does not soothe me – since when should you or I know when to accept or not accept the choices? But since there is no free lunch, neither for me nor other SW developers, ok. But it’s best in the open, as this case, kind of, is.
WordPress.org forum
I have queried about this here: Cross-site tracking
Other
Norwegian: Forhindre nettstedsporing i Safari på Mac