Google Analytics can track individual Internet users across millions and millions of web sites. Google has quietly rolled out a browser add-on for Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari that prevents information about an individual web site visit from being sent to Google. Presumably this was done in response to regulatory scrutiny somewhere in the world as Google does not lightly deprive itself of any information about your Internet activity.
A good start but we still need:
- The add-on to be distributed through the various browsers’ integrated add-on catalogs and not just buried on the Google site.
- Google needs to provide the add-on for other browsers as well. At minimum, they need to support all the browsers they put on stage for marketing purposes (e.g. Opera)
- Google should build it into Chrome and turn it on by default (note that Chrome still has a bunch of other privacy issues)
- We need a similar add-on for opting out of AdSense which has a comparable tracking ability.
