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IE9 adds Google Analytics to list of protected domains
Microsoft has just announced the release candidate of Internet Explorer 9. Included is a ‘safety’ feature called Tracking Protection which, in principle, is a good idea. Unfortunately, they’ve added the URL for Google’s Analytics service, google-analytics.com, to the list of addresses that user’s should be protected from. The feature is turned off by default but including the Google address is bound to encourage users to block it and at the very least sow seeds of doubt about a Google associated domain.
It’s hard to see this as anything but a terrible and petty idea. It seems like a swipe at Google but, because of the ubiquitous nature of Google Analytics, is more likely to impact site owners than the search giant. Blocking the GA url could severely hinder the accuracy of many web owner’s statistics. According to Wikipedia, Google Analytics are in use on around 57% of the 10,000 most popular websites so it’s likely it’s in use by millions of sites worldwide. With Internet Explorer having a 64% market share it could lead to a huge number of webmasters vexed at a sudden drop in traffic.
IE9 is great news and looks like it could be a browser to contend with the latest offerings from Google and Mozilla but this seems like a very bad move indeed. Let’s hope they remove the GA domains from the Tracking Protection list in the final public version.
2 Comments
I think you are missing the point: the feature is there to protect User privacy. Some people feel unwell when they know someone at google can tell: all your web searches, emails, AS WELL as all the websites you visited (well, around half of them or so).
This feature is a very good idea, and I hope Firefox includes it too
Maybe we’re missing the point but I’m not convinced
It’s true many people are concerned over internet privacy but I don’t think blocking GA will help. GA has very strict (sometimes limiting) rules about personalisation that prevent them tying any stat back to an individual. There are many other sites Microsoft could have chosen that would have more effectively protected people’s privacy than GA.