I don’t think analytics are evil in and of themselves. If they are used to improve user experience (eg by analysing what content or features people use and how

I don’t think analytics are evil in and of themselves. If they are used to improve user experience (eg by analysing what content or features people use and how so that the workflow can be improved, or new high value features or content added), then I think analytics are great. Without the data, you are blindly throwing stuff at the wall hoping it sticks. But that’s rarely what analytics are actually used for and no matter how much you want your platform to be used for that, people will misuse it. Instead analytics are used to wring as much value out of a user as possible, typically by using analytics to find out how best to suck up users attention and get them to buy more stuff or interact with more adverts. I don’t think people would mind their privacy being eroded quite so much if it wasn’t being used against them to trick them into spending more money (either directly or indirectly via advertisement). That’s ultimately what it comes down to: why do people buy personal data? To find out ways to trick users into spending more money. Understanding user behaviour so that you can build better products or produce better content (but why are you doing this? In most cases it s because better content = more users to click on adverts...) is fine, or even necessary. But most analytics data isn’t used for that, or at least not solely for that. In a product I’m currently working on, I’ve taken a stand that the client will have NO third party scripts or analytics. Zero. And on the backend, I only use third party services necessary for running and maintaining a quality service and disclose all providers I use and share data is processed or stored by them. I’m not completely analytics-blind, as I do track metrics and logs, but I try to keep them focused around what’s needed to monitor service health and debug issues and only high level data on what people are using (anonymously) and how frequently. As others have mentioned, I think consent is an important aspect. And not this “your privacy is important to us, so uncheck these thousand checkboxes if you want privacy” bullshit. I think if you are open an honest with users about what data you collect and what you do with it, and ask them if it’s ok with them first, then I have no real problem with it, especially if it really is only for improving the user experience.