Google Analytics - Overanalyzing You?

For my first post, I'm going to criticize the hosts of this here domain! No other way to start things off. :)

For reference, here is what I am discussing:
http://www.google.com/analytics/

In addition to the corporate world, the folks at Google are aiming this at libraries and library systems. I just read in Advanced Technology/Libraries, one of my work journals, about how one particular software vendor, The Library Corporation, "has optimized its LS2 PAC [public access catalog] software to work with Google Analytics, the Google service that tracks Web traffic and trends." As a library patron, the PAC is what you see when you access the library's catalog, usually through a web browser, to search for materials and manage your patron account.

I have a number of philosophical and ethical problems with this, and I wonder how fully some libraries and systems have considered them. For example, the protections in the Patriot Act that used to exempt libraries from most of the worst investigative violations of due process will expire December 31st and there is no satisfactory amendment in place to fix the lack of privacy protections that libraries and their patrons currently enjoy. So, by and large, the Act forces libraries to give up information on your account if they are subpoenaed in the course of an investigation. Circulation information, information requests, and the searches you make were once protected.

So now, if your library uses Google Analytics to help them with reference and circulation data in their PAC, what does that mean? If you are logged into your library account to browse for materials, does this mean that your searches are attached to your patron record? This is a HUGE question, and I am going to engage in a little speculation here. If that is indeed the case, I would imagine that they could find out an awful lot about your personal habits from that. What does that mean for Google? Could a library be asked to give up all of this patron data which should really be private? I am wary.

Longer press release is here:
http://www.tlcdelivers.com/tlc/who-we-are/pressreleases/press2009/google-analytics-111009.asp

And the American Library Association's positions on the Patriot Act are here:
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/oif/ifissues/usapatriotactlibrary.cfm

I think TLC is trying to position themselves in a very dynamic ILS vendor environment as the best source for statistical information aggregation, but I'm concerned about this partnership.

New Blog!

Hello!

I decided to join the blogspot community. I still have a (very) private blog on another site, but it is past time for me to put some of the more open-ended musings in a public space. So here it is - welcome, and thanks for reading my humble little missives in the cloud.

-Joanna