Let The Conspiracy Theories (and congressional hearings) Begin

I received this email from Google regarding my account with Google Analytics (website reporting tool).

Google once again positions their collection of data as "open source sharing" and make it sound like such a good internet citizen kind of thing to do.

Just don't forget that they are the ones who are storing/providing it. And linking it into their Doubleclick adserving reports, and tracking browser cookies across their site properties like YouTube, and using the results in sales presentations to sell more services to marketers.

Insert additional conspiracy theories here...

From: Google Analytics
Date: April 9, 2008
Subject: New Optional
Benchmarking Feature Available in Google Analytics

Dear Google Analytics users,
We are writing to let you know about a change in our service offerings. If you have logged into your account recently, you may have noticed that you can now choose to share your Google Analytics data. By providing data sharing options, we hope to provide you with transparency, control, and new services based on your preferences.

To learn more about data sharing settings, visit our FAQs: http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?answer=87515

We're also happy to announce industry benchmarking as the first new feature available to those who opt to share their data. Benchmarking lets you compare your metrics against industry verticals.

The industry benchmarking feature is currently in beta. Once you have enabled benchmarking, it may take up to two weeks before the categorized, aggregated and anonymized benchmarking data shows up in your reports.

For more information on the benchmarking service, visit our FAQs: http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/topic.py?topic=13909

In addition to the new benchmarking service, opting to share your data will also enable you to take advantage of new advanced Google products and services as they become available. We think these services will offer greater insight and sophistication to users who have opted to share their data. However, if you would prefer not to use these services, simply specify on the settings page that you don't want to share your data.

Sincerely,
The Google Analytics Team