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Google unveils browser add-on that blocks Analytics service – Computerworld

May 26, 2010 By Leave a Comment
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Google has released a Web browser add-on that will stop the browser from sending information to the Google Analytics service, which Web sites can use to collect data about their visitors.

Google said it developed the tool “to provide website visitors with more choice about how their data is collected.”

Web site owners can incorporate Google’s Analytics JavaScript code on their site to collect data such as when a person visited a Web site, if the person has been there before and the search terms a person used to find the Web site.

Analytics creates a cookie on a person’s computer. Cookies are small data files used to record information about how a person interacts with a Web site.

Google’s new tool, the Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on, tells the Analytics JavaScript that information on the Web site visit should not be sent to Analytics.

There are other tools for Firefox users that can block Analytics. Adblock Plus and NoScript can both be set to prevent Google Analytics from receiving any information from the browser, while OptimizeGoogle blocks the Google Analytics cookie in addition to modifying other aspects of Google’s behavior, including blocking Google advertisements and modifying the user ID cookie Google assigns to users of its search engine so that they can surf anonymously. Other cookie-management tools can also block the Google Analytics cookie, but won’t stop Google Analytics from receiving more general information including the IP address of the Web user and the address of the page containing the Google Analytics tracking code.

via Google unveils browser add-on that blocks Analytics service – Computerworld.

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Google Offers Choice to Opt Out of Web Analytics | Threat Level | Wired.com

May 25, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Google is offering a way for web users to opt out of being tracked around the web by its popular Google Analytics tool used by publishers to track traffic and trends on their websites.

Publishers like Wired.com insert a simple line of Google Analytics Javascript on their site and then can see on a dashboard which pages are popular and what search terms lead users to their site. But Google also gets much of that user information in aggregate, so it has a bird’s eye of the internet, thanks to all the sites reporting back to it. It knows more about a user’s activities across multiple sites than any individual site knows. It uses that data to improve its own services.

Google Analytics is now letting users opt out of having your information, including your IP address, sent to Google’s central servers if you install a browser plug-in for IE 7 or 8, Google Chrome and Mozilla’s Firefox. Google Analytics program manager Amy Chang described the new tool as a way to “provide even more choice and transparency for both website owners and users.”

The new choice to opt out comes just a few days after Google gave users the ability to cloak their searches from some online snoops by searching using https://www.google.com.

via Google Offers Choice to Opt Out of Web Analytics | Threat Level | Wired.com.

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Google Building Browser Plug-In To Protect Consumer Privacy | MediaPost Publications

March 22, 2010 By

Google is working on a browser plug-in that allows consumers to block being counted when landing on a Web site that monitors visits with Google Analytics. The Mountain View, Calif. company’s engineers continue to test and finalize the function.

Sitting in the crossroads, Google needs to support advertisers, investors and consumers. The obligation to support advertisers and shareholders resides in the ability to develop tools that provide data and ad targeting. But to succeed, Google must become a good corporate citizen and give consumers a method to opt-out and protect their privacy.

Google engineers have been working on the plug-in during the past year and plans to make it globally available in the coming weeks, according to Amy Chang, group product manager at Google Analytics. She says the search engine takes privacy very seriously and will continue to provide people with more choices.

“Though Google Analytics does not track personally identifiable information, the plug-in will give users the choice to fully opt-out of sending any information back to Analytics,” Chang says. “We’re constantly working to enhance the balance between privacy options for users, while providing advertisers with valuable and actionable data to improve their Web sites.”

via MediaPost Publications Google Building Browser Plug-In To Protect Consumer Privacy 03/22/2010.

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Achtung! Google Analytics is illegal, say German government officials

November 24, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Several federal and regional government officials in Germany are trying to put a ban on Google Analytics, the search giant’s free software product that allows website owners and publishers to get detailed statistics about the number, whereabouts and search behavior of their visitors (and much more).

According to an article in today’s Zeit Online (poor Google translation here), multiple federal and state government officials charged with guarding over national data protection are convinced that Google Analytics is against the law in Germany and are mulling imposing fines on companies who use the service to gather detailed stats based on their website visitors’ usage patterns without the explicit consent of those visitors.

Still according to the Zeit Online article, an approximate 13% of German website publishers (meaning those with sites that have .de as their TLD) currently use Google Analytics, including several websites of leading media organizations, political parties and pharmaceutical companies. The government officials are particularly wary about the information Google is able to collect on websites of health insurance companies and the like, saying Google could conceivably create profiles of people that would include information about their interests, lifestyles, consumption patterns, political and sexual preferences.

This isn’t the first time German privacy protection officials have voiced their concerns about the Google Analytics service, as it had earlier criticized the search giant over keeping everyone ‘in the dark’ about which information they’re collecting exactly and how much identifiable data is sent to and stored on servers located on U.S. soil. German laws prohibit such data to leave the country, they claim.

Google Germany’s Per Meyerdierks, however, says the company is well within its rights to process user data in the United States because it respects the Safe Harbour treaty between the EU and the USA. He argues that an opt-out would be entirely unnecessary, and that users always have the option to refuse cookies anyway.

One German lawyer that gets cited in the article says the penalties could amount up to €50,000 (about $75,000) per website that uses Google Analytics to keep track of its visitors’ usage patterns.

via Achtung! Google Analytics is illegal, say German government officials.

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