1) The author of that thread is calling a software with analytics a spyware. By that definition, any website you use, including this very website you left a comment on, is spyware.
2) NetData is built-in, but it's not enabled by default. Use is free to install/ or not to install the package.
Webpages and local software are not the same thing. Local software does not need to report my activity to Google, a third party, to work. Webpages do require second party communication to function.
Surely you realize the difference. Your attempt to conflate the two is not productive.
The way that such surveillance is legitimized into not-spyware is via obtaining AFFIRMATIVE consent from the user.
Without that, it's spying, and software that does so is spyware. It's quite simple.