This again..
Google wants to know what web pages you visit, when, and how often, and a GA beacon that phones home that information placed on every web page is the easiest way for them to do it.
EDIT: there are either a lot of angry GA users in this thread or Google apologists. Either was, I do believe Google is now or will soon use GA for clickstream tracking. I also believe this is why they offer to host frequently requested assets like JQuery.
Let's not forget the Google Fonts, which exist to "make web beautiful". How adorable and altruistic. Yay! /throws-confetti
"We do log records of the CSS and the font file requests, and access to this data is on a need-to-know basis and kept secure."
Just like every other Google Privacy Policy, it's insultingly disingenuous, couched in terms of protecting your privacy while actually reserving for themselves the right to violate it by collecting enough information on you for you to be uniquely identified and storing that information indefinitely.
Your constant projecting of ulterior motives, absent any evidence, on a throwaway account, is the very definition of worthless, gratuitously negative content. The guy upthread is complaining that requests are cached for a day.
I'm sorry, would y'all prefer that they not be cached?
And as to this: it's insultingly disingenuous - no, it really isn't. Every piece of web server software in the world keeps logs. Would you prefer they lied?
You seem hell-bent on damning Google for not doing anything particularly evil in this case. And it doesn't look like you're willing to have your mind changed, either.
> Requests for CSS assets are cached for 1 day
Tracking font request "only" once per day is still spying.
Also, regarding your jump from Google's attack on our privacy to a larger to that "New World Order" reference is highly offensive. You're building a straw-man that was not stated, and perpetuating the belief that someone who complains about their privacy being attack must be some sort of "conspiracy theory nutter".
And all that doesn't even begin to touch "panopticlick" style entropy gathering.
In case you are interested in learning what how Google works, instead only looking at the facade they show you, I suggest watching the presentation[1] Aral Balkan gave at the same event that hosted djb's recent talk (which is also recommended). You won't like it - possibly violently - but maybe you can learn a bit about how the world actually works..
[1] https://projectbullrun.org/surveillance/2015/video-2015.html...
What is your suggestion, that they should abandon all analytics, or that they should build their own, or do you not have one? Are you willing to acknowledge that GA solves a real problem and provides valuable information?
In my judgement, it makes a lot of sense that Mozilla would use GA. I want them to use it because I believe in their mission, and I'm sure in the balance of things, it helps them maintain a stronger position as an organization.
Ideally, yes. Or at the very least don't use Google for it. Use something like Pwiki instead. Or perhaps try actually allowing your users to decide what if any information they feel comfortable sharing with you.
There are other non-profits like the Wikimedia Foundation and the Internet Archive whose websites still somehow manage to function despite not triggering any of the multitude of filter rules that plugins like uBlock ship with.
It's easy to bash someone for hypocrisy when they're trying trying to do the right thing. It's a bit weird seeing this consternation at Mozilla considering just how scummy the other companies are.