[Foundation-l] Google Analytics test

[Dan Rosenthal]

This is a bad idea. I share Mathias' concerns that this has privacy  
policy implications.

-Dan Rosenthal
On Oct 2, 2007, at 12:27 PM, Andrew Whitworth wrote:

>
> Many people are probably aware now that i've started a test of the  
> Google Analytics page counter on en.wikibooks. I hear that people  
> are running a similar kind of test on en.wikinews. Currently, these  
> programs are opt-in: only registered users are using these scripts,  
> and it involves manually adding them to the personal monobook  
> files. The information received so far has been fantastic: counts  
> of page hits, click patterns, information about entry points that  
> we can use to improve the welcome for new visitions, etc. However  
> this test has also raised a few concerns. Some concerns I would  
> like to address, others I would like to get input from the  
> foundation about.
>
> 1) First and foremost is the issue of privacy. The information that  
> google analytics collects is a step above what is typically  
> available to regular users, but not quite as detailed as CU data.  
> Some information, such as geographical area and the ISP of a user  
> is aggregated, but it is not attached in any way to a user's  
> screenname. That is, without a priori knowledge about the user, it  
> is impossible to attach a particular username to a particular ISP,  
> geographical location, or any other piece of collected data. I am  
> currently inspecting the google analytics code looking for a way to  
> suppress the collection of ISP or geographical information, but  
> havent found a way yet.
>
> 1a) Ancillary to the idea of privacy is the issue that the  
> analytics code should probably remain opt-in. Many users are  
> conscious of privacy and security issues, and they shouldnt be  
> forced to decide between participating in a tracking program or not  
> visiting wikibooks at all. I've proposed a solution that  
> unregistered users could be tracked by default (testing wgUserName  
> == null), but registered users would need to opt-in explicitly.  
> After all, I feel that information about our readers is far more  
> important then the same information about our editors.
>
> 1b) Another related idea is that individual books could be tracked  
> for readership patterns, while the whole remainder of the wikibooks  
> project could remain script-free. Notification templates could be  
> used to indicate which books the scripts were active on. A book  
> could be tracked for a month or so at a time. We could track a  
> handful of books at once, and then change which books we track on a  
> regular basis.
>
> 2) Second is the issue of server load. Running the script now  
> currently involves an additional javascript page access per user.  
> However, the javascript files can be cached. The script runs in  
> javascript and performs interactions with the google analytics  
> website, but does not transact with the WMF servers. I believe that  
> server load for us should be minimal (but I want confirmation about  
> this from the techs)
>
> 3) Log files are only available by default to the google account  
> holder (myself) and other people that are specifically added by  
> myself to the profile. If we keep the access list very restrictive,  
> we dont need to worry about sensitive data from becoming public.  
> However, we do run the risk of giving users with access "power",  
> which is a common fear. If we were to set up accounts on behalf of  
> the project or the WMF (as opposed to personal accounts), we could  
> negate this issue entirely.
>
> I'm looking for as much input on this issue as I can get. I'm not  
> planning to make any changes to any javascript for the forseeable  
> future, till the concerns are ironed out.
>
> --Andrew Whitworth
>
>
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