That's right and while it's up to google - there is an unfortunate consequence that a very large analytics industry exists and funds thousands if not millions of jobs - not saying this won't have an impact on that industry would be short sighted - I am of the belief that if you don't want to be track there is one very simple solution turn off your computer.
Personally I couldn't care less if some people lose jobs.
SEO in general is all about gaming the algorithms of search engines to gain an unfair advantage. A search engine that needs SEO to get to the front page is a broken search engine. And because Google has the incentive and the resources to constantly improve it, an industry built around the deficiencies of a search engine is doomed for extinction from the start.
Of course, SEO is not the only reason for why some companies need analytics. But for all the other reasons, they should do what good businesses have always done and actually talk to their customers or potential customers, instead of looking in the records of their referrers, which often contains the deepest desires of people without them realizing that the data in question will be released.
if you don't want to be track there is one very
simple solution turn off your computer.
These kind of statements kind of make my blood boil and I'm trying really hard to contain my anger.
As to your statement, you're saying it like it's an option to turn off the computer. Well, that's not an option anymore for many people, and it's increasingly clear that we're going to depend on computers connected to the Internet for everything, like for doing our shopping, for paying our bills, for communicating with others and for being able to do our jobs.
It's enough to say that privacy is a fundamental right that people should always keep fighting for and for which eternal vigilance is required. And if there ever was a time in history when people truly had privacy, that was only because some people fought for it.
Totalitarian states never needed high-tech, like interconnected computers or street video cameras with face recognition and GPS chips implants and all that crap, all they needed was for people to turn on each other, so the Internet is not even a prerequisite, but human stupidity and shortsightedness is.
SEO is not about an unfair advantage. If that were the case, then Google itself wouldn't offer a free guide to SEO.
That's simply an unfortunately common and ignorant misconception. It's like saying that knowing HTML design requirements is an unfair advantage in making web pages.
I don't disagree with your views on privacy, but what google does is simple hypocrisy. It still continues to provide visitors' search terms to paid advertisers who are probably much more likely to use them for questionable purposes than a random site from organic results.
If google is so concerned with privacy, why not block keyword passing from AdWords ads as well?
