It feels like we have a bit of a double standard on here when talking about metrics / tracking.<p>Quite commonly we see articles about tracking users etc but with the stories such as the London 'tracking bins' (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6198883) and NSA stories we have a significantly more negative response.<p>I'm a fan of metrics and tracking - the amount we can learn and good we can do with such information is incredible. In my mind though, there is not much difference between tracking user views on my website and tracking pedestrians walking in my city.<p>What makes one more 'right' than the other?
I believe that tracking users in this way is wrong no matter what the reason is. About 2 or 3 years ago I removed all analytics and other forms of tracking from my personal website and all other projects. At first it felt weird, now it just feels normal and when someone shows me their google analytics dashboard it feels plain creepy.<p>I suggest that if you support privacy then the things you create should reflect that.
The bins article talked about things like "Installing a sensor in the bathroom so you know which gender the person has." Not to mention they'd connect things like which shops you visit and at what time. At any time a police officer could come along and say "We want all records you have on MAC address xx:xx". Quite a difference from websites tracking people.<p>The same problem exists with Google tracking - it's not that you know who's been to your site, it's that Google know every site you've been on, when you've been there, and what you did there.
There is quite a difference between them, google analytics on your website would be more akin to an individual shop tracking the people who walk inside. I think a better comparison for these "tracking bins" would be your ISP logging your traffic and selling metrics to third parties. The key difference here is that it was public, in a place you thought you wouldn't be tracked, ever.