Business is up for one web analytics provider after Google rebranded Urchin and launched a version of it as a free service, and that could be due to privacy questions.
How can free be good for the fee-based competitors in an industry? In the case of Google Analytics, it can be good when potential customers want to know as much about the privacy of their information along with the usefulness of the analytics tool.
MediaPost reported how the CEO of analytics firm ClickTracks, John Marshall, described the Google effect to writer Gord Hotchkiss:
First of all, people don’t seem comfortable with the fact that Google is holding all this data about their sites and its performance. “The privacy backlash has expanded in online forums and is creating a groundswell of concerns. Interest in our products is quantifiably higher than before!” wrote John. “Customers are simultaneously aware of Web analytics AND aware of data privacy concerns. The degree to which customers are coming in the doors here at ClickTracks and opening discussions with ‘is my data private?’ has surprised us.”
US customers are not the only ones asking questions about privacy before looking over the shiny sales brochures. Marshall noted that customers in Japan have similar worries about “centralized data collection.”
Google does have a lengthy privacy policy in place. The policy is a blanket one that does not specifically address services like Analytics. However, as Nathan Weinberg posted, use of Google Analytics requires the site publisher to have a privacy policy, per the Analytics’ terms of service.
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
