> block hosted analytics solutions like Google Analytics That's the goal. The pattern-of-life[1] analysis that GA enables is an incredible long-term risk. All

> block hosted analytics solutions like Google Analytics That's the goal. The pattern-of-life[1] analysis that GA enables is an incredible long-term risk. Allowing one entity to log almost all of your internet activities into one aggregated database creates a massive amount of potential-social-power. Even if Google isn't currently converting that potential-power into an abusive form, the very existence of that data in one location creates a huge temptation for thieves and governments with national security letters. > roll their own analytics Server logs only give you a view of the traffic to one website. There is a huge difference between one business knowing you use their service and a 3rd party carefully logging your entire daily schedule. [1] I highly recommend reading http://labs.rs/en/metadata/ http://labs.rs/en/metadata/ which unfortunately didn't get much attention when it was recently posted to HN. I suspect most people are still thinking way too small when judging what is possible from "just metadata".