Online Users’ Attitude Towards Web Tracking & Its Potential Effects On Future Web Analytics Tools

Sammanfattning: The topic of the thesis was proposed by the company X. The purpose of the thesis is to gather an understanding of how online users perceive web tracking and web analytics. The goal of the thesis is to answer the questions regarding online users’ attitude towards web tracking and web analytics and to further study how users' attitude towards web tracking could impact the future of web analytics tools and their features. To be able to understand what online users feel, a survey was conducted to be able to identify how users feel about their online privacy, sharing personal data as well as other types of data that web analytics tools collect. The results from the survey were then analyzed to identify patterns and understand how the different questions  intertwine together. To be able to answer the first research question, “How does web tracking & web analytics affect online users?”, the answers from the survey were used. The material found underneath the “related work” heading was used to support and verify the result of the analysis.  A qualitative research method called grounded theory was partially followed to be able to answer the second research question: “Which common features of web analytics tools could possibly remain in future web analytics tools?”. The results from the first research question were used to be able to form a hypothesis of how the future of web analytics tools may look like. The qualitative research method was adapted to the context of the thesis and therefore some steps were modified or skipped to be able to answer what the future of web analytics tools will look like based on the opinions of the online users'. It was found that the individuals who do not want a tailored experience on the web are also the ones who trust companies/organizations the least with their personal data. They are also the ones who are the most concerned about their privacy. It was also found that these individuals do the least to protect their privacy whereas the ones least concerned about their privacy were the ones who did the most to protect their privacy online. Participants of the survey were mostly aware of GDPR and the majority of online users do not read the terms and conditions when visiting a website. Lastly the question of which feature would remain in the future web analytics tools was answered. The features in the categories visual maps, user behavior and real-time activity are likely to remain. The categories acquisition tracking, individual user behavior and geolocation is likely to be deemed as irrelevant since they do not align with the beliefs of online users regarding privacy.