Hitbox on LiveJournal

[kevink]

I want to address the questions and concerns we have heard from users about Hitbox code on LiveJournal. There are several points that have been raised and I'll try to touch on each one.

Comments

[snarkophagus]

The apology is much appreciated, and at the risk of beating a dead goat, I'd like to elaborate a bit on why I was so vehemently opposed to this. It's not the fact that a site tracker was used. It's the fact that there was no advance announcement of it like there is with almost every other feature that's implemented after the managers have been excited about it.

More to the point, it's the fact that no one knew beforehand exactly what would be collected. I understand the need for tracking site use, and even agree with sending anonymous data. I think you may have underestimated the true sense of community many of us take away from our LiveJournal experiences, and being blindsided with something that can't really be fully explained is a violation of the trust inherent in that sense of community.

Making business decisions is entirely fine, but when a major change is made, we all deserve more than being told "we're figuring out what it does" after it's already been implemented. Especially where third party organizations are concerned; I trust LiveJournal, but other companies who don't disclose their methods sound incredibly shady to me, regardless of the nature of the agreement into which they entered.

That said, again, I appreciate the apology that was issued, and I do hope that this has served to underscore the fact that LiveJournal as a business is built on the community nature of its userbase.