Cookieless and Privacy-First Are Not the Same Thing

The Microsoft Clarity result surprised me most.

Author

Jeff Sauer
June 18, 2026

Most people use "cookieless" and "privacy-first" like they mean the same thing.

But there is a subtle difference I break down in this week's video:

(This video is sponsored by Cookiebot by Usercentrics. They appear on the scorecard, and I scored them the same way I scored everything else.)

When Cookiebot approached me about their new Privacy First Analytics tool, it sounded too good to be true.

So, I compared their features with those of eight major analytics tools and asked six straightforward privacy questions about each one. GA4. Microsoft Clarity. Hotjar. Plausible. Fathom. Matomo. Simple Analytics. Piwik Pro.

The most interesting finding? The tools that pass the privacy test don't do heatmaps or session recordings. And every tool that does heatmaps didn't pass.

Watch the full breakdown here →

To Your Measured Success,

–Jeff Sauer
CEO of MeasureU

P.S. MCP Workshop enrollment closes tomorrow at midnight. If you want to connect GA4, GTM, and Microsoft Clarity directly to Claude, this is your last chance. Workshop details here →