Just like 10 out of 1000 people click on this button so I should remove it. 400 out of 1000 people use this feature, so I should improve it.
How about educating end users on the analytics vs privacy part.
It USED to read that you had to ask for opt-in permission BEFORE you began tracking (which is the current pattern my app follows, but how many other apps/extensions have I seen do this?.... 0).
In my app, upon install/launch it prompts the user with a popup asking if they would like to help the developer out by sending anonymous data. I made it opt-in (the user had to explicitly check the box). Out of a daily 4500 Active Users, I only have 4 people who opted in (it's less than 0.1% for those who don't want to do the math).
With the old policy of requiring user's permission to opt-in, it makes it really difficult for any developer (who follows the rules) to get any valid feedback. I've posted on the Google Group and Stack Overflow and the question is basically ignored because it's an open secret that most people simply treat it like any website analytics as in they embed the code to track and move on.
I currently follow the Firefox pattern/language choice:
[ ] Share performance, usage, hardware and customization data anonymously with the developer to help make ___ better. <<Learn More About Data Collected>>
TLDR; You'll get 0.1% compliance if you make data collection opt-in and you're upfront about data collection... it sucks because it makes the whole "Collect/Analyze Data" part of Development very difficult.
> [ ] Share performance, usage, hardware and customization data anonymously with the developer to help make ___ better. <<Learn More About Data Collected>>
IMO the wording is really important here. If I were to write this section of user preferences, I'd go for something like:
▸ Help improve X
Click on which expands the panel:
□ Allow collecting anonymized information about the usage of the application. It will be used for <reasons>. Only the following data will be sent to us over encrypted connection: <easy-to-understand list>. <<Learn more>>
(I know it's easy to give advice, though, and I don't have my own product on which to test copy ideas yet.)
My opinion: ...and it should be both disclosed and opt-in.
My opinion: ...and users shouldn't act surprised by it.
> My opinion: ...and it should be both disclosed and opt-in.
And, perhaps, avoided completely–once your shop has resources to spare for in-house testing and usability research.
I installed your extension, and it's fantastic - here's my 5 star review!
IMHO all static websites have analytics, yes the HTML one's too. Browser extension need tools like analytics 100x more.
None of my websites have analytics, and I feel violated by the ones that do. Especially newspaper websites are big offenders. I even go as far that my custom build web server does not have a log. I don't want to know who visits my website, in fact if I had a log I'd get rid of it like it was the plague.
Why don't you just ask your customers what they want? That's what I do, I believe I also get more accurate information that way.