From a site owner's perspective, I don't like this.
It's always been possible for a site owner to track certain things via access logs, I think Google should still allow for those basic metrics to be tracked via Google Analytics.
While it's still possible to track site usage via logs, I don't think Google should give end users a way to bypass the wishes of a site owner. If someone is using my site, I believe I have the right to have access to certain usage information. (Insert bit about doing it ethically)
In the past, Google Analytics has been good enough, and I've not felt the need to analyze my server logs. Now I question how popular this plug-in will become, and how it might skew even the most basic and fundamental usage stats.
By providing an all-or-nothing plug-in, Google is hurting those using Google Analytics more than it's helping to ensure people's privacy.
Google Analytics and any JavaScript based analytics can only ever be regarded as indicative.
If you think it measures your whole audience you're wrong. People might not finish load the page for example. Or they've ad-blocked the ga.js. Or they are using NoScript. Or they're using an accessibility layer.
It may be the majority of your audience, but I'm fairly sure that even with this add-on/extension that GA will still remain a good indicator of your audience size and your audience habits. That hasn't changed.
That's what I've been doing. I've simply been using AdBlock Plus to prevent anything from Google Analytics from loading. I found that Google Analytics would often take the longest of any element to load, causing my browser's progress bar to spin indefinitely instead of finishing the page. Blocking Analytics entirely got around this annoyance.
In any case, it's nice of Google to provide this to the privacy-conscious.
I definitely don't think it measures my whole audience. I've just been comfortable with what I perceive as the size of the audience that I'm not measuring.
I think the release of an easy-to-use, official plug-in at a time when people are up in arms over privacy could lead to less accurate statistics.
It's too early to tell whether this plug-in will have a large effect of not. If it is talked about in the right places, it definitely could.
You don't think users should have control over their own property?
Oh, come on there is a limit. I mean; the only reason this is big news is because Google supplies a lot of sites with analytics. If a site uses another service then this opt out is useless (in terms of them not being tracked). Additionally they are providing all this data to the site directly - Google is just the aggregator some webmasters choose.
This is, in fact, about people preferring Google not having their information. Which is a fair enough point (if I visit XYZ.com I don't implicitly agree to provide my data to Google).
I think there is a fair gentlemans agreement in place; whereby website owners have a "reasonable expectation" to be able to see what kind of users are accessing a site. If we start calling that personal information I suspect it will start to turn into a Mexican stand off of users hiding data and webmasters trying to sneak it out of them :)
A friend of mine pointed out a useful metaphor: it is like a customer dressing in baggy clothing, using a ski mask and voice modulator and then sneaking into a shop to buy something with gold pieces - because they don't want to provide demographics to the shop owner. Sure it is their right; but it also doesn't benefit anyone :)
You have the right to ask for that information. You have no right to compel the user to answer.
The user has no right to view the site owner's content. The site owner therefore has the right to make provision of analytics data a prerequisite for access to content. No one's bothered to do so because the proportion of people who opt-out is currently quite small.
As often as I think to myself how dangerous it is that I've allowed Google to have so much of my information - I'm constantly impressed by how upfront and ethical they are.
Are you thinking of the "if you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place" quote?
If you look at the full quote [0], it's actually quite reasonable and forthright. He's explicitly warning users that search engines, including Google, are subject to inquiries from law enforcement, and thus, should not be considered secure, rather than dismissing privacy out of hand.
No, I wasn't thinking of that quote but now I cannot remember the article. It was around the time Google released Buzz and I think it was he who hinted that how the users got it wrong. Am I wrong to think that it was him who said that?
No, but I also don't disagree with him. He was right for the most part. More importantly, nothing has been done to fix the problem. Everyone blamed Google, but few people have actually attempted to fix the problem of privacy, or even offer up solutions.
At the end of the day, Google has done more good for privacy then all the users screaming at them.
Yeah, but Google should overthrow the government and set up one without subpoena power. Otherwise, they're just not doing all they could to protect my privacy.
This is how Google builds their brand. To ensure that the insanity around facebook doesn't ever happen to them, they're handing out these tokens to the few thousand people that understand something about technology.
But if sites begin to customize themselves for you, show you JPG ads instead of Flash because you are a Mac user that never clicks ads, why would you opt out?
Not likely since the j/s is hard-coded into website templates. Even if they did change the domain, very few websites would have the new domain for awhile.
While this may be a left-hand doesn't know what the right-hand is doing kind of thing, I don't think this is good.
It gets very tricky when companies try to be the arms dealers to both sides. You can't advocate privacy and provide privacy tools while at the same time promoting analytics and data-mining tools used because of a lack of privacy. Ultimately, the two sides conflict and the end result is often bad for both sides.
Case in point -- IronPort used to be a company selling spam cannons, and then they started selling anti-spam devices. They quickly realized they had to stop selling the spam cannons if they wanted to be perceived as the anti-spam vendor of choice.
...which works if you always access your sites from the same IP. I like the idea of using a browser extension (or noscript or something like that) which stays with my computer.
I'd really like cookie sequestration to be a standard browser feature. By sequestered, I mean that cookies be bound to the domain in the address bar as well as the URL they are served from. So I would have different versions of the Google analytics cookie for every domain I visited.
Waaiitaminute.. if I want to opt out from your information-gathering program I have to install something on my computer and constantly run it in perpetuity?
<brain explodes>
I can't wait until mailing lists try this: "To unsubscribe from our list, please send email every 24 hours to keepunsubscribingme@___.com. Here's a webapp to join to simplify the process." or "Would you like Sears to stop sending these coupons to your house? Please send a postcard to ___ every 30 days." Lol.
(Not saying this is a bad idea. What do I know? I'm going to keep it on my radar.)
The website owner chooses to install it on their website. You visit the website, with JS enabled. If you don't like that the website uses Google Analytics, you are free to not frequent the website anymore, or to turn of JS.
Your mailing list or coupon metaphors really aren't the same. Instead, it would be more akin to buying things from Amazon, asking Amazon them not to send advertisements, but getting made when they send you a purchase update for the purchase you made.
A real life example would be complaining to a store about being video taped while you are shopping, and the store using that data to plan a new layout based upon customer habits.
I'm aware of the implementation issues. That's why I don't dislike the idea. But they're just that, implementation issues. Look at it from the user's perspective. I'm me, I'm right here. Stop remembering me everywhere I go. Get it done.
Imagine if you were told you'd keep getting telemarketer calls because 'it's too hard to take you out.' You wouldn't care how valid that argument is.
The prevalence of CCTV is a good analogy, yes. I understand why they need to exist, but they still creep me out. I just go through my day trying not to think about them. I suspect a lot of people do the same. This plugin creeps me out in the same way, it brings up something I'd rather ignore.
I run NoScript in Firefox and only sites I've specified have JavaScript enabled, and usually only for files served by that domain.
So I guess I'd count as someone with JavaScript disabled for the vast majority of sites where I am just reading something and not wanting to interact with the page.
I use Chrome's built-in javascript blocking. It's simple and gets the job done. Best of all, my whitelist is synced across all my Chrome instances, including fresh installs.
It's always been possible for a site owner to track certain things via access logs, I think Google should still allow for those basic metrics to be tracked via Google Analytics.
While it's still possible to track site usage via logs, I don't think Google should give end users a way to bypass the wishes of a site owner. If someone is using my site, I believe I have the right to have access to certain usage information. (Insert bit about doing it ethically)
In the past, Google Analytics has been good enough, and I've not felt the need to analyze my server logs. Now I question how popular this plug-in will become, and how it might skew even the most basic and fundamental usage stats.
By providing an all-or-nothing plug-in, Google is hurting those using Google Analytics more than it's helping to ensure people's privacy.