I don’t think server side analytics are surveillance at all.

It’s like if a shop is doing inventory and knows which product is bought how often. There’s no information for the visitor to volunteer, because every visitor should know that the shop/webserver knows when a visitor visits.

> The other reason you might put analytics on your site is to know when someone links to your writing. Again, if the linker doesn’t intend to tell you, then you’re surveilling. You do not need to know every time your writing is mentioned.

Assuming this is done with the referrer header, I also don’t see how this is bad. That’s the whole point of the thing, if you don’t want that as a user, disable it in your browser.

Oh come now, that's putting the onus on the user who might not know the first thing about headers or browsers.

The refer(r)er header is a relic from a distant past when the internet was a very different beast, and when people had very different concerns.