Why does gov.uk, a site all about allowing the British public to interact with the British government, use google analytics?
You are shipping all the data about all my interactions with my government off to a third party in another country. Another country that we know has not got the same legal data protection requirements, and one which has now been exposed as having massive internal spying problems.
And no, telling me "google aren't allowed to use the data" and then opening an outsourced helpdesk ticket with another US based company does not cut it.
Assuming they listen to your suggestion and act on it as you suggest, it seems the only option open to them is to design their own in-house (In UK for that matter) version of Google Analytics to do their own analysis. Regardless of the cost and time this would add to the project, it's unlikely that it would be anywhere as good as Google's offering.
The other, more likely, option would be to decide it's too expensive to implement a different, more complicated, solution; so they don't bother. They don't get the feedback and analysis on how to improve their services and the customer experience declines until you're back where you started with a poorly designed product offering hard-to-find information and people are posting angry comments on HackerNews about how bad gov.uk is and how they would never run a start-up like that... I'm almost certain someone would say "Why don't they use google analytics to improve things, like everyone else".
Instead, we need to be applauding a massive operation like Gov.uk for taking a dose of reality and thinking, "we're not doing anything amazingly special here, we're providing people with a quick way to check their council tax, or bin collection dates, or maybe pay their car tax. let's just get the job done as best we can."
That's not what I want from my government.
--edit-- I also didn't make any suggestions, I would have accepted a reasonable explanation of the legal and technological measures that were in place to protect my data from rampant proliferation through US corporate and government systems.
Instead I got (and this is a direct quote) "We don't allow Google to use or share our analytics data.", and a zendesk reference number. Fobbed off, basically.
And with the zendesk link, now my actual communication with a UK government team is being processed in the bay area.
This is unacceptable.
--edit 2-- Somehow other large UK web-based institutions manage without GA as well. The BBC for instance. Perhaps they could talk to each other.
I think that before Snowden most people, myself included, would have thought not using google analytics for the above reasons was paranoia.
Now, I think that all digital data should be treated as public and until we change the law to have a public / private demarcation, we need to accept it and deal.
(I see this as a pollution issue, until we get a clean air act, everyone will walk around with cloths across their mouths)
edit: little less troll like:
We have no framework for digital privacy, and until we see an emergent consensus there will not be one. Here, on this site, we have informed, reasonable people disagree on fundamental definitions of online privacy. So the first step here is to ask, "privacy in the US is based on two things, actions in ones own home are protected by default, and written communications between yourself and others are protected, and publishing is an explicit act"
What do those things now mean in a world of mobile phones, internet and metadata?
Pretending it's a non-issue and not addressing concerns AND then using an overseas helpdesk service, such that now not only are analytics being sent to the US, but actual communication between a UK citizen and the UK government.
But particularly the latter half.
>> I think that before Snowden most people, myself included, would have thought not using google analytics for the above reasons was paranoia.
Most people haven't been paying much attention then.
>>Now, I think that all digital data should be treated as public and until we change the law to have a public / private demarcation, we need to accept it and deal.
Cool, if that's your attitude to this. Some of us would prefer to prevent our government being complicit wherever possible. They may already be in breech of various regulations and I do intend to be in contact with the ICO soon.