

50% of the top 10,000 sites use Google Analytics - emmett
http://royal.pingdom.com/2009/04/08/40-still-use-old-google-analytics-script/

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wmeredith
This doesn't surprise me. (The fact in the headline not the urchin/ga split
the article discusses.) Google Analytics is incredibly robust and reliable
considering that it's free.

I always hear arguments against using it, but one has yet to win me over. My
agency subscribed to LyrisHQ Clicktracks service for a year before canceling
it in favor of just using Google Analytics and passing the savings on to
clients. (Customer service was great with Lyris, but the interface was
unintuitive and slow. It also costs an arm and a leg.)

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sounddust
_The question is, are the owners of these sites aware that urchin.js won’t be
around forever? Are they aware that they are using a legacy script that is no
longer being maintained?_

No, I had no idea. Google doesn't seem to have notified me of the change, and
there is nothing in the UI of Analytics that warns that our code is the old
version. A simple "Warning: you are using the old script on your site" banner
would have caused me to upgrade immediately. I'm glad I read this article.

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idont
That means google has 50% of chances to have a good advantage in the
negociation process when/if buying one of the top 10'000 websites. :)

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josefresco
Awesome point, although I would hope that their privacy policies would exclude
them from that very possibility. Just because Google provides analytics does
not mean they should have access to the specific data being collected.

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profgubler
I do believe unless you turn off the option of sharing your data with Google,
they do have the ability. I am not a 100% sure, but I think so.

