[Foundation-l] Google Analytics on Wikimania site

[Sue Gardner]

That's probably true, Robert.  FYI, our legal counsel Mike Godwin has 
been taking a look at the privacy policy - working towards development 
of an FAQ and internal guidelines about what's acceptable and what's 
prohibited. I've drawn this thread to his attention.....

Robert Rohde wrote:
> 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