I am not passing IP. I am not passing a client-id. I am not passing any kind of correlation identifier from which a session can be inferred or created. I am not passing user-agent information. I am not passing a cookie ID.
I am only passing a page view event. "Page /foo/bar?bash has been viewed".
But isn't the same kind of data you could extract from Apache logs? Since from what you describe is basically a log of all your requests.
GA has many utilities, mainly is to follow the user and see the funnel they go and second to monitor the marketing campaigns. If you don't need this, then Apache log + webalyzer is perfect for everyone.
I persist with GA, because every now and then I work with partners who would like to verify the activity on my websites (and yes my user agreements and privacy policy allow this) and have a means to compare this with historical data or data from other sites.
Those partners frustrate me, in that they won't trust me to provide stats generated from server logs, but they all default trust GA.
This technique allows me to use GA, produce the view of the content they need, export the PDF, and share that... and they trust it.
GA is the de facto store of trusted data when it comes to web site activity. For my sites that is tracking content page views.
This whole conversation started with you saying why abandon GA when you can use it without compromising clients' privacy. An exchange that followed shows that one can't actually derive not just the same function from GA that way, but virtually any function at all. Yes, you can feed data in, but the usefulness of what you can get back out is next to zero. What am I missing?
From your opening comment:
> Why not move to push GA data server-side?
Because it renders GA largely useless if clients' privacy is actually observed.
> I am only passing a page view event. "Page /foo/bar?bash has been viewed".
I would like to say, as someone extremely hostile to tracking of any kind, that if this is all you're sending to google, that sound perfectly fine from a privacy perspective. (Google gets your information, but that's between you and Google)
Thank you for choosing a method that respects the privacy of your readers.
I am not passing IP. I am not passing a client-id. I am not passing any kind of correlation identifier from which a session can be inferred or created. I am not passing user-agent information. I am not passing a cookie ID.
I am only passing a page view event. "Page /foo/bar?bash has been viewed".
Take a look here: https://code.google.com/p/serversidegoogleanalytics/
Tell me where in that example (mine is similar) you see any client identifying information.
There is none. If GA deduces anything, it will be a property of my origin server and not a client.
I do not agree that using GA in the way I have described allows Google to invade privacy at all. Please explain clearly how it does in your opinion.