Will NYC Go with Google Analytics?

I just read an interesting post on Tom Miller's blog summarizing NYC Mayor Bloomberg's keynote note from the Personal Democracy Forum. Miller's take on the speech was that the city may use Google Analytics for optimizing Web site content. From this passage about the Bloomberg presentation, I'd have to agree:

The Mayor also announced that the city is going to partner with Google to study "anonymous usage data" to "allow us to optimize the content on the Web site based on what people are most often searching for."

I have to say, the idea of government Web sites using Google Analytics makes me a bit uneasy from a privacy perspective. I just can't get comfortable with the idea of the government passing data to GA so Google can come up with new ways to advertise and market. There's a lot of activity going on these days around the subject of web analytics and government as it relates to the Obama Administration Open Government initiative and the release of the Web Analytics Association Report on Government and Web Analytics.

We don't usually think of the public sector as a hotbed of Web analytics activity, but change has been long overdue. It's great to see that change may be on the way. Hopefully it will be sorted out so that there is a reasonable balance between analytics value and personal privacy protection.I have to say, the idea of government Web sites using Google Analytics makes me a bit uneasy from a privacy perspective. I just can't get comfortable with the idea of the government passing data to GA so Google can come up with new ways to advertise and market...