Official Google announcement here: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout
Interesting discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1378004
Do you use GA? Do you know of any alternative, preferably open source (although just non-proprietary is acceptable), web analytics solutions?
Anonymous
Ooh, a question!
I see what the webmasters are saying, but I honestly don’t think enough people will use this to make a difference. Sites that derive revenue from their audience should factor in that 5-10% of users may be using adblocking and other privacy tools.
A great plugin I use on Firefox (I see it’s on Chrome now also!) is Ghostery. It shows you a list of all the trackers on a page, with links to more information, like the relevant privacy policies. You can also block any you don’t like.
With things like this, I take the view that you need to respect user privacy above all else. In fact, most of your users won’t be aware of the extent to which you can invade their privacy, so you should have a policy explaining all the trackers you use, and how to opt-out. If you want to make money by somehow forcing or tricking your users to behave in a way that benefits you, then you should find a more ethical model.
That said, I do use Google Analytics. I think it’s fascinating to explore, and it has influenced me in how I decide what stuff to share. I’ve also used Piwik, an open source self-hosted analytics app. It has lots of great features, and would be perfectly adequate for the casual and curious webmonkey.
Everything…and “More?”
This strikes me as a really weird UI decision.
Polishing a turd: The ‘new’ Google logo
Google have made some very minor modifications to their logo. Brand New sum it up perfectly:
…the new logo seems better because the old one was just so much worse, despite it being the exact same thing
At top is the previous logo, and in the middle is the version currently being rolled out. The one at the bottom is mine, and took about ten minutes using Photoshop layer styles. I think it could be further improved by lavishing another five minutes on lightening some of the blues and checking readability at different sizes. That aside, I think mine is already sharper, cleaner and generally better than any Google logo thus far. That’s not to say that I’m such a great designer or anything, but I thing Google still have a lot to learn about the value of good design.
Google Mail Envelopes may be just a concept, but you can print out something similar at http://www.mapenvelope.com/
EDIT 15.04.2010: This exact idea has now been implemented: http://mapvelopes.appspot.com/
Google Streetview in 3D
Google Responds To Privacy Concerns With Unsettlingly Specific Apology
“We would like to extend our deepest apologies to each and every one of you,” announced CEO Eric Schmidt, speaking from the company’s Googleplex headquarters. “Clearly there have been some privacy concerns as of late, and judging by some of the search terms we’ve seen, along with the tens of thousands of personal e-mail exchanges and Google Chat conversations we’ve carefully examined, it looks as though it might be a while before we regain your trust.”
Google Chrome for Linux
It seems Google are now actively pushing Chrome on Linux users. Finally! The browsing experience on my netbook has been pretty rough: Firefox runs like an absolute pigdog. Epiphany is much better, but generally feels like a browser from half a decade ago, and Midori is much the same, but also tends to crash a lot.
“40 years of Sesame Street” Google doodle. This after yesterday’s “20 years of Wallace & Gromit” one (which may have been UK only?).
I’m very fond of the Google doodles, and these last couple have been great fun, but they’re the first examples I can remember of doodles based around commercial products. They normally relate to events like the moon landing, a famous artist’s birthday etc.
The Google homepage must be one of the most valuable pieces of web real-estate around. Are they really promoting entertainment brands for free? Is this a sign that Google are going to start having “sponsored” homepages? (I’ve not really investigated this, but just a thought…)
Further, I’ve noticed (although have no specific data on this) that there have been much-more-frequent-than-usual doodles recently. The marketer in me thinks this is a deliberate attempt to differentiate from Bing for the mainstream non-geek, especially with the Microsoft search engine’s very picture-based homepage.
