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  <p>
    <a href="http://www.google.com/analytics/">Google Analytics</a> has gone through a series of data protection enquiries although so far I have no news that any authority has unquestionably found its use against the law.
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  <p>
    However, whereas I always implemented a policy of never try to dig too further into the data, basically using the number of pages read, navigation path, referrals and search keys as the only useful information, I was uneasy with the fact that my readers could undergo a more in-depth analysis by the others with whom I shared said data. In fact, Analytics works out of a javascript snippet that is downloaded from Google servers and that monitors the behaviour of the surfer. Pretty disturbing indeed. I was providing valuable information for free, in return of some information that were for me of low or no value –  yet for other users they could be invaluable.
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  <p>
    Moreover, my entire website is based on Free Software, from Apache to Debian, from MySQL to PHP and Drupal. Google Analytics actually download and run a piece of code, written on Javascript, of questionable nature and upon which I have no control.
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  <p>
    More than enough reasons to switch. Then I have found this interesting project, the above mentioned <a href="http://piwik.org">Piwik</a>, which is based on Free Software development, released under the GPL and that installs on my own machine. It was no brainer, I have installed it, it was up in less than five minutes, zero effort. It is I who read all the data, and I will continue doing it with moderation. If you don't trust my <em>word</em>, trust my <em>laziness</em>.
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  <p>
    I have moved my main two websites, <a href="http://piana.eu">Law is Freedom</a> (this one) and <a href="http://arraylaw.eu">Array</a>. The third one, <a href="http://law.piana.eu">http://law.piana.eu</a> is a low traffic one and frankly I don't give a damn monitoring it. <img src="http://www.piana.eu/modules/fckeditor/fckeditor/editor/images/smiley/msn/wink_smile.gif" alt="" />
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