can someone point me to the class/logic where each visit gets associated with the visit ID and therefore also the check for an existent cookie (to identify returning visitors) lives?
I’d like to extend this logic and in my case there are several reasons I cannot do it on the application I’m monitoring with Piwik and send the UID as parameter.
Should I expect any obstacles when extending this logic as plugin? (In that case I’d probably try it quick and dirty by modifying the core file - the extension I have in mind should be quite simple/short.)
I simply wanted to add an ETag based identification as IP based is not very feasible with a lot of users from companies behind NATs and cookies often get cleared. The suggested way of Piwik - identifying users on the portal login - does in no way complay to our companies data protection guide lines as obviously you could link exact behaviour profiles to the real person you know from your work. And also the aim of both methods is to generate long time profiles having such a link or not is very crucial.
But I just read How do I tell Piwik to track Unique Visitors based on the Visitor ID cookie, instead of using IP Address? - Analytics Platform - Matomo due to its update with 2.8.0 and it reads like Piwik either uses IP or cookies atm, where I thought it would be absolutely logical to combine those two. So when Piwik does not utilize a combinations of identification methods itself, what should be an easy task (adding one) could really be more complicated. A pity. You should consider changing that (also I still haven’t had time to look into the code and this is just a guess from what I read).