Comments on: Google Change Breaks Third-Party Analytics Tools

By: Rich

Rich — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 11:38:56 +0000

This is why they test things though isn’t it? I can’t see any way they would push this to live across their whole search network with this flaw. The repurcussions would be too huge.

By: TKD

TKD — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 10:19:50 +0000

@Josh Catone

I’m not a lawyer either, however, Google’s competitors are not the companies who use the results of their search engine. It’s other search engines. It might be an issue with Google Analytics.

We all like diversity in our lives and more places to choose from. If you’re trying to do a large search on something you will be using other search engines as well. And if Google will disregards aspects of users’ liberty … well … it may be that users will stop using Google.

My point is that if you provide services based on another business you are playing a risky game. And I think the main goal of a business is to be ‘the best’ in what it does. That’s what Google did. Now it’s up to them to decide what paths to follow (even if we like it or not) …

I’m not trying to ‘defend’ Google. I’m just trying to be realistic.

By: Josh Catone

Josh Catone — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 03:15:03 +0000

@TKD: In this case, I would guess they might be looking at potential anti-trust violations. They’d essentially be using their monopoly position as the world’s largest search engine to bully competitors out of the market. That’s not legal.

(Of course, I am not a lawyer, so I could be wrong.)

By: glenngould

glenngould — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 02:38:17 +0000

Off topic:

How do you do a quote on here?

Use b-quote button or

By: TKD

TKD — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 22:46:48 +0000

Good one from Google … or maybe not so good. Anyway, I agree with Tarh. There was another post on SitePoint talking about building a business on another business (had to do with the iPhone I think)…

Google can do what they want to do with their search engine and data, they shouldn’t actually care about the others. Why should they?

Overall ‘the game’ is all about the money, isn’t it?

By: corbyboy

corbyboy — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:49:41 +0000

Looking at the RFC it states that the hash fragment should NEVER (in capitals) be passed as the referrer. They then link to the security section, which doesn’t actually mention anything about the hash fragment.

Does anybody know why it isn’t considered part of the URI?

By: halfasleeps

halfasleeps — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:38:11 +0000

Because fragements are not considered to be part of the URI -

Well with current uses of the hash, (ajax and flash deep linking) maybe that needs to be rethought.

Off topic:
How do you do a quote on here?

By: nachenko

nachenko — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 14:38:34 +0000

Fixing this is actually very easy provide you CAN ask Google for reference, which I’m pretty sure Analytics will be the only one able to do.

By: Silver Firefly

Silver Firefly — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:50:26 +0000

I only use Google Analytics, so I’m sure they wouldn’t let this go live AND break their own software, would they? So I have little to worry about. /shrug

As for the other analytic software, maybe it’s time for them to shift up a gear.

By: 2MHost.com

2MHost.com — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 11:22:53 +0000

I see now .. I was crazy yesterday because my custom tracking systems showed some visitors comes from http://www.google.com without any paramaters like the key words the visitor used to reach my website ..

thank you Josh for the update!!