Google Analytics announced last week that it will provide an opt-out option plugin for internet users, potentially cutting analysable traffic by a substantial amount.
Google is providing the opt-out service within the next few weeks, it says, to provide users with choice as to how their activity data is collected.
Google’s keen to demonstrate a high level of regard for data privacy, which makes sense in the context of the current internet privacy debates which recently witnessed Google itself coming under scrutiny for its alleged disregard of Gmail users’ privacy after it launched social networking service Google Buzz.
The search giant faced accusations of privacy invasion, which included the Electronic Privacy Information Centre lodging a complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission against Google.
So what does the opt-out plugin mean for website owners and search marketers? As much as 80 per cent of companies in the UK use Google Analytics to track their site’s performance, according to a survey by Econsultancy and Lynchpin Analytics. Should Google’s move to allow users to choose whether or not they are tracked give publishers cause for concern?
Various news sources have scare mongered companies into worry about the potential drop in traffic volume from analytics data, and fans of the free package may be indeed be disappointed on discovering the impending changes; after all, Google Analytics provides everything the average publisher needs and more from an analytics package, and all for free. But in reality, it’s not every internet user that is interested in, cares about, or is even aware of analytics and whether or not their activity is being tracked.
Any user that has a vehement aberration to their activity being tracked thus far has had the option of becoming invisible to Google Analytics by disabling JavaScript when they use the internet, and so while the new opt out option may make it a little easier to become invisible, it isn’t the first solution to exist to users wishing to remain untracked.
Coupled with this is the fact that even if tracked visitor numbers dropped drastically, Google Analytics exists for the purpose of identifying trends in traffic and actionable data, not merely monitoring traffic volume nor tracking individual users’ behaviour.
Google’s not the first provider to offer this type of tool either. There are similar functions on Coremetrics as well as SiteCatalyst from Omniture. In theory, the same trends and actionable data will still exist, even if a large segment of visitors opts out.
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