Overview
Most of the website owners were always interested in knowing who visits the site. Detailed personal details like name or identity doesn’t typically exist (or can be accessed) because of privacy laws and restrictions, but website owner can obtain various these types of information of their visitors via analytics software. Data from these tools is about general site behavior and characteristics of the site visitor without identifying them specifically.
Web Analytics Tools: Website owners can use platforms like Google Analytics, and others, to tell them about where visitors are, the device or browser they used, and how long they stayed on the site. Knowing which pattern are more likely to convert and keep the website accessible becomes easy with these insights. Yet, these tools don’t disclose the actual names or contact details of visitors, unless the visitor voluntarily provides this info, by completing forms or signing up.
IP Addresses and Cookies: Website owners get access to the visitor IP addresses that tell you which country or city the visitor is from. But the IP address alone usually gives away nothing about someone's personal identity. This means that site traffic can also be tracked through cookies, small files stored on a user’s device. These are used in order to personalize the browsing experience but fail to identify users directly, and only to the extent that additional data of login is associated.
User Registration and Login Data: Website owners can see more specific date, like a visitor’s name and email, if a website requires users to register or log in. This happens usually in e-commerce or social media or membership based websites. Yet, such data is usually guided by privacy policies, and website owners must safeguard this information and disclose whether they use it.
Conclusion
A Periplo’s Visitor only shows up in the Periplo logs if the visitors actually provide their data voluntarily — despite the fact that the website owner can track user behavior and some general data. Another reason why data collection is limited are privacy concerns and even things like GDPR which enforces that you are not able to collect any data without the explicit consent. Google Analytics is a tool that provides anonymous data and it's useful to site owners to optimize user experience and not violate personal privacy.
