Today I found a new notice in my statistics page: Google™ is asking users of Analytics to allow sharing their data so they can mashup it into comparative and sectorial statistics. Though I generally trust Google’s will to not to be evil, it seems they aren’t totally immune to falling into small tricks to raise the system to a meaningful results level faster, like activating the sharing by default —or so said the advice text—, and adding only an Accept button, while the option to decline is in a small text link, probably in order to trigger the accept-and-forget effect.
Anyway, the new options seem reasonablely cool for business sites. From the Google Analytics Blog:
Industry benchmarking is a commonly requested new service that enables customers to see how their site data compares to sites in any available industry vertical. […]
Of course, benchmarking only works if people can opt to share their data into the system, so we’re also introducing a new data-sharing settings page. […]
You can also elect to share your data with other Google services. This setting will allow us to provide you with additional advanced new features. […]
The question is: do I want to share my data? I don’t exactly own a business site and, like many people out there, I’m certainly not «powergaming» in the net race to turn innocent bypassers into customers. So, really, the new Analytics toy ain’t helping me a lot aside from giving me a new reason for stat-checking procrastination. On the other hand, I’m not a lawyer and I cannot bother checking how this fits in the Privacy Policy and if it opens any backdoor.
So, if you are facing the same doubt, maybe you’ll want to do the same I did: think ‘not now’ and wait. It’s the same reason I have for not installing new Ubuntu distros as soon as they are released. The hardcore users that have more to gain from going first will find the issues and within a month or two we the backmarkers will be able to join —or not— safely and better informed. It’s not really like the Google guys are gonna feel emotionally hurt because I don’t share my micro-stats…
