90% of that can be accomplished with server-side stats. Do you really need to track mouse movements and follow readers with super-cookies across the web to find out what articles people find engaging on your site?
> The idea that tracking is purely or primarily there to support a business model of selling user data
Purely, no. Primarily? You can bet your sweet ass.
I agree in general but there are some things which I don’t see going away any time soon that publishers need. Online advertisers want to know that their ads are being viewed by a human and not a bot, and that they were on screen for long enough and that the user didn’t just scroll past. Publishers want to know how far down you make it in their article, so they know where to put the ads in the body of the article.
> The idea that tracking is purely or primarily there to support a business model of selling user data
Purely, no. Primarily? You can bet your sweet ass.