[Foundation-l] Google Analytics on Wikimania site

[Robert Rohde]

To be clear, I'm not saying that using Analytics should be okay.

I'm saying that, in my reading, the existing policies were not foresighted
enough to actually address this situation.

-Robert Rohde

On 10/18/07, Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil at wikinewsie.org> wrote:
>
> I am sorry, I cannot accept that the inclusion of this code and "dancing
> on
> the head of a pin" to say Google collects the data can fit anywhere under
> the privacy policy.
>
> 99.9% of the Internet population are not smart enough to selectively block
> Google analytics. It is totally unacceptable to have code that requires
> opt-out of a data collection scheme on a Wikimedia project. Particularly
> when the opt out is technical and obscure.
>
> The data is going to a third party, and I don't have a clue who else has
> access to it. Whose Google Analytics account is it? We don't even know
> that.
>
>
> Brian.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
> [mailto:foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Robert
> Rohde
> Sent: 18 October 2007 18:09
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Google Analytics on Wikimania site
>
> On 10/18/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> >
> > On 10/18/07, Gary Kirk <gary.kirk at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > What's the big deal?
> >
> > It's in violation of:
> > http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy
>
>
> Having just reread the privacy policy, I think that's debatable.  Mostly
> because this scenario appears to be largely outside the scope of what was
> considered when writing the policy.
>
> The analytics code instructs a visitor's web browser to communicate with
> Google servers in a way that will provide Google with various user
> specific
> information.  However, the privacy policy is built around what the WMF
> will
> do with user information, and since the WMF is technically neither
> collecting nor controlling the information being sent to Google, it is not
> clear to me that the privacy policy, as currently written, actually
> considers this situation.
>
> I'm not sure whether having Analytics active is reasonable or not, but in
> my
> reading, the privacy policy is largely mute when it comes to facilitating
> third parties in the independent collection of user data.
>
> Perhaps the closest thing to a restriction is:
>
> "Wikimedia will not sell or share private information, such as email
> addresses, with third parties, unless you agree to release this
> information,
> or it is required by law to release the information."
>
> But directing a web browser to access an external site that then collects
> information on it's visitors could well be understood as something other
> than "sharing private information" since WMF neither provided nor
> collected
> the information.  I assume the real intent, at the time this phrase was
> written was to prevent disclosures of information WMF has directly
> collected
> and controls.
>
> In the spirit that a privacy policy ought to explicitly describe all
> allowed
> uses of user data, perhaps it is reasonable to say that Analytics uses
> ought
> to be forbidden by virtue of the fact that they are not explicitly
> allowed.
> However, the privacy policy also seems to strangely omit any statement to
> the effect that uses of user data are limited only to scenarios covered by
> the policy.  Some individual sections may have that effect, but the policy
> itself never actually says it is a comprehensive description of how user
> data may be used (even though I assume it was intented to be
> comprehensive).
>
> -Robert Rohde
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