You don't think they do analytics on users based on these cookies session? Because doing that without the consent pop-up is (I claim above) illegal, and so the clever workaround fails.

I would be really, really surprised if Github were the only Bay Area unicorn that lacked a product manager nagging them for more analytics. The fact that they don't need to sell the analytics is irrelevant.

I can't speak for Github, but I can speak for my team in [tech giant]: if I wanted to do analytics on end users I'd have to go through a review to confirm that I would not be violating privacy laws. I literally couldn't query them if I wanted to without jumping through technical hoops with audit processes and paper trails.

I do believe Github is legitimately trying not to use that data for analytics. But whether some PM in there is querying that data for analytics purposes: at that point we're just speculating based on how cynical you or I want to be. I don't think that's a meaningful point.

Also: I'm not saying I don't think they do analytics. I'm saying I don't think they are using users' personal data for analytics. That's an important difference with respect to GDPR.