GA does use 1st party cookies. There is still concern that with sufficient statistical analysis, Google can still track users across multiple sites. "Anonymous" data frequently turns out to be very personally identifying.
In particular, comparing behaviors and IP addresses used in Google products and captured in Google Analytics would be very easy.
Likewise, Google knows a super-majority of site entrances from their search engine, and a correlation is trivial given that most users are logged in for search.
To wit: if I perform a search with a unique referrer, and that unique referrer is then captured with my Google Analytics user cookie, then I can be readily identified as a person.
Doubleclick and other Google services share this issue.
Others do use Third Party Cookies.
Mozilla is threatening to turn off 3rd Party cookies entirely, which has caused no small amount of concern from ad companies.
See this post, one in a series of hilariously over the top diatribes from the Interactive Advertising Bureau:
http://www.iab.net/iablog/2013/06/mozilla-kangaroo-cookie-co...
Yeah, I saw the bit about turning off all 3rd party cookies, which made me happy as I already do that myself.
As for the ubiquity and potential for data sharing among Google services, I suppose I hadn't though that entirely through. I know there was one analytics company claiming it could track individuals between devices using some fancy statistics, but I assumed it was snake oil (it was not GA claiming that).
Anyway, I hear ya, and thanks. I can see a case against GA specifically, though I have a hard time swallowing it against all analytics. I suppose it's a question of trade-offs that people are willing to make.
In particular, comparing behaviors and IP addresses used in Google products and captured in Google Analytics would be very easy.
Likewise, Google knows a super-majority of site entrances from their search engine, and a correlation is trivial given that most users are logged in for search. To wit: if I perform a search with a unique referrer, and that unique referrer is then captured with my Google Analytics user cookie, then I can be readily identified as a person. Doubleclick and other Google services share this issue.
Others do use Third Party Cookies. Mozilla is threatening to turn off 3rd Party cookies entirely, which has caused no small amount of concern from ad companies. See this post, one in a series of hilariously over the top diatribes from the Interactive Advertising Bureau: http://www.iab.net/iablog/2013/06/mozilla-kangaroo-cookie-co...