The document discusses best practices for collecting and tracking user data, emphasizing the importance of users' consent and privacy. Specifically, it recommends only tracking data relevant to the product, notifying users what data is collected and why, avoiding tracking sensitive information like locations without permission, and anonymizing or aggregating data when possible. The document cautions that failing to follow these principles can damage trust and lead to public backlash.

1. How to collect data
really really good
And be a good human being too

2. Who am I?
• Work at Keen IO - sorry if the
wifi sucks :( and you're
welcome if it rocks.
• 10+ years of web application
programming (PHP anyone?).
• Have built and worked with
many data collection tools
across a variety of industries.
• Proud supporter of Movember.

3. Let's add analytics!
• We just made the new uber of airbnb's for reptiles,
let's track all the user data: location, friends with
reptiles, eating habits, and favorite other apps.
• Store the data now, figure out what to do with it
later. Space is cheap, and we have access to a
wealth of user information from their phone.
• We should track information not relevant to the
product in case we pivot to the airbnb of ubers for
mosquitos.

5. Why We Should Track All the
Things
• Tracking user behavior gives us insights into
product usage.
• We can build recommendations based on how
others use the system.
• Find useful patterns of engagement, or use
patterns to help determine which features are used
most.
• Provide product personalization.

6. What Should We Think Strongly
About When Tracking?
• Location data - People are very sensitive about
others tracking their locations over time.
• Financial data - Tracking what a user buys over
time could be somewhat invasive.
• Habitual data - Sites you visit, how long you stay on
those sites.

7. Examples of “Creepy” Data

8. iOS and Location Data
• My phone never asked me to
track my location and “learn”
my commute.
• As a developer, I know how
easy this is to do, but it still
feels like an invasion of my
privacy to do it without asking.

9. Ad Cookie Tracking aka
Retargeting
• I searched for shaving products a while back, and looked at Harry’s
web site, but this came from The New York Times’ web page.
• This site has nothing to do with different shaving needs, so why does
it know what I was looking for? Creepy.
• This is even worse for more highly targeted markets like weight loss
and dieting.

10. Avoid Being a Creeper
• As a general rule of thumb, just don’t track things
that have nothing to do with your product.
• Don’t use location information for your product?
Don’t track it!
• Let your users know what you’re tracking and why.
• Many won’t read about it, but if the information is
there, those who care will read it.

11. Track Smartly
• When dealing with geo location data, avoid
tracking with anything that can lead back to a user.
• Track based on a session id, not a user email
address or name - add one layer of abstraction.
• Make sure your sessions have a fixed length
(30-45 minutes is a good one).
• Blur the location data. Often blurring to within +/-
100 feet can help, but its generally not enough.

12. Make Sure Users Know
What Benefits They Get
• If you are tracking something,
make sure your users knows
what benefit your product
provides.
• Generally speaking, if your
product doesn’t have to do
with location, don’t track
location to serve better ads.

13. If You Can, Track
Aggregates
• If it makes sense, aggregate
your data into cohorts or
groups that make sense.
• Other people in the same
geo-box.
• Others from the same ISP.
• It’s inherently less “creepy” to
be part of a sum rather than a
single point of data.

14. What Happens When You
Don’t Track Smartly?
• Remember the whole position information log debacle from
Apple?
• Location tracking files are stored on your phone
unencrypted.
• Ended with a lot of bad press and some very vocal
disgruntled customers.
• Facebook applications that would store your friend lists and all
of their information.
• Why are my friends getting notifications from me that I never
authorized?

15. Don’t Pull an Uber
• Uber, as a product should be tracking location of
customers, but what happens when that
information is accessible to people inside the
company?
• Just because you are tracking something, does
that mean you should easily be able to search
through it? Is there a different way to track that
information that still makes sense?

16. Looking Forward
• As product designers and
implementors, we should track
as many things as we can
about our products.
• We have a moral obligation to
consider the consequences
and uses of what we track.
• Lets make All The Things
better!

17. Thanks!
@alexk_k