[Web4lib] Privacy and Google Analytics [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

[Dyer, Renata]

William,
I use the Google Analytics for the site I designed and manage for a
small non-profit organisation. I don't think it conflicts with the
privacy but I often wondered whether I should display this information
publicly and I came to a conclusion I should. 

In my mind, using such tool raises privacy concerns and site visitors
should be informed that lots of information about their system (like
what is their web browser, what is their IP, internet connection and so
on) will be registered as well as their visiting activities and so on.

There are lots of web sites that provide their visitors with the
information relating to the web analytics on  their site under the
Privacy Policy or Privacy Disclaimer area. Examples are:
http://www.jrsainfo.org/privacy_disclaimer.html (look at the para. 3),
http://www.astm.org/IMAGES03/prpolicy.pdf

If you want to find more information about these issues just Google the
following search terms:
allintext:  "web analytics"+privacy -site:google.com

Renata Dyer
Systems Librarian
Information Services - Treasury
Langton Cres, Parkes, ACT, Australia
ph: +61 2 62632736
e: renata.dyer at treasury.gov.au

-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of William Denton
Sent: Wednesday, 17 December 2008 8:49 AM
To: web4lib at webjunction.org
Subject: [Web4lib] Privacy and Google Analytics

We're thinking of using Google Analytics to track users.  I run logs
with AWStats [1] right now, and it's pretty good, but Google Analytics
can do more, and it's free (for some values of free).

Privacy is a concern.  Did any of you find Google Analytics conflicted
with a privacy policy?  If you used it, did you announce it and tell
people how to avoid it?  I wouldn't want to deploy it sneakily.

I'm in Canada, which has a special privacy law called PIPEDA [2], but
any comments would be welcome, from any origin.

Bill

[1] http://awstats.sourceforge.net/
[2] http://www.privcom.gc.ca/legislation/02_06_01_e.asp
--
William Denton, Toronto : www.miskatonic.org www.frbr.org
www.openfrbr.org


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