Following persistent concern over privacy, Google is working on a plug-in allowing users to opt out of having their activity monitored by Google Analytics.
The plug-in is still being tested, but Google plans to make it available worldwide in the next few weeks.
“As an enterprise-class web analytics solution, Google Analytics not only provides site owners with information on their website traffic and marketing effectiveness, it also does so with high regard for protecting user data privacy,” says Amy Chang, group product manager for Google Analytics.
“Over the past year, we have been exploring ways to offer users more choice on how their data is collected by Google Analytics. We concluded that the best approach would be to develop a global browser based plug-in to allow users to opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics.”
While users might welcome the new feature, website owners may not, as many rely heavily on Google Analytics to monitor their traffic. Over 70 percent of the top 400,000 websites are said to use the service. Advertisers will also have less confidence that they’re targeting the right people.
