Google Analytics

Last month an Austrian computer science professor, Hermann Maurer, raised his concerns about the volume of information being passed to Google as a result of the widespread use of its free Google Analytics analysis package. The NZ Herald article is here.

Professor Maurer's concerns represent the "informational purist" end of the spectrum. eLgar uses Google Analytics to provide traffic data for the OPAC and has proved a valuable tool in our work in that area.

The benefits certainly outweigh the possible risk for us, we aren't running analytics to enhance our position on search lists as many organisations do. We don't use the Google adwords and campaign functionality of analytics, we are using it to track traffic and search terms in order to better understand out customers' behaviours and improve our service.

My "official" answer would be: Using Google for this service, as it's free, is a prudent use of ratepayers money given the cost of the alternatives which are no more accurate.