Google Analytics / Docs - Yes or No? (Is Google evil?)

[saint.panda]

I don't know whether I'm just out of touch and ignorant about Google's practices or whether our main IT guy just wants to give us a hard time by refusing to install Google Analyics and comparing Google to the Stasi. He wants to an open source thing called Piwik instead, which seems quite powerful and is actually more tweakable, but doesn't have Google Analytics's neat Adwords integration.

I mean what could Google possibly want to do with our website data anyways (other than aggregating it for analysis purposes and for selling me AdWords) and they have thick privacy policy to boot. What do you think?

[tkam]

I use google analytics for stats here on head-case. It's free and takes all of 2 seconds to setup and reports a fairly in-depth amount of data. I'm happy with it and have no plans on changing.

Yes it does have integration with adwords/adsense

[saint.panda]

Hm, then the question is more like how do I convince my IT guy otherwise without simply overruling him? Anyways, will figure something out.

[grawk]

Hm, then the question is more like how do I convince my IT guy otherwise without simply overruling him? Anyways, will figure something out.

"I'm not a communist, so we're not using communist shitty software"

[Spiug31]

If your IT guy is more comfortable working with Piwik and you get the same functionality then humour him.

Opensource means he'll have full access to the code so knows what the program requires, what it will do and can fix any vulnerabilities as and when they arise. Proprietary / closed programs mean you adopt a hope and pray approach as you give up control to the product manufactures and just hope that the code they write is non-malicious and will harmonise with all the other manufacturers and codes your servers run :fingers-crossed:

[tkam]

Opensource means he'll have full access to the code so knows what the program requires, what it will do and can fix any vulnerabilities as and when they arise. Proprietary / closed programs mean you adopt a hope and pray approach as you give up control to the product manufactures and just hope that the code they write is non-malicious and will harmonise with all the other manufacturers and codes your servers run :fingers-crossed:

That's only valid if the IT guy has enough understanding of the code to fix or patch it himself. Otherwise he's relying on the apps authors for fixes and patches just like he is with proprietary closed source software.

[saint.panda]

He said, and I tend to believe him, that he has enough understanding of the code behind it. The tweakability factor and non-proprietary nature speak in favour of Piwik. I just think that the Analytics / Adwords integration will be quite convenient since we'll probably use it a lot.

My preferred option is try both if he so insists but I don't see much hope in convincing him if he sees google as a legion of 50 000 hackers using Stasi methods.

[grawk]

He said, and I tend to believe him, that he has enough understanding of the code behind it. The tweakability factor and non-proprietary nature speak in favour of Piwik. I just think that the Analytics / Adwords integration will be quite convenient since we'll probably use it a lot.

My preferred option is try both if he so insists but I don't see much hope in convincing him if he sees google as a legion of 50 000 hackers using Stasi methods.

He works for you, right?

[saint.panda]

Equal equity spread among 6 people although some have more say than others and a redistribution of shares might be in order anyway. But he's the guy who programmed the entire backend of our website and these are the only things where he has a bit of a say and I don't want to take that away. But I guess we'll just go with majority vote on this one if I can't convince him otherwise.