

Analytics in Bootstrap, Boilerplate etc. Is Google spying while Development - micronax

After I set up the 1000th Bootrap or Boilerplate I wondered if the integrated (and active!) Google Analytics snipped would collect and submit data while development progress to Google servers.<p>That would allow Google to collect information about the quality of development (eg. testing, hours spent, count of developers &#x2F; testers etc.) month BEFORE the Website launches to public.<p>Should we all comment out the GA-Snippets while development or is it just OK to leave them active?
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chestnut-tree
Yes, they most certainly will be collecting tracking data. Do you link to any
Google fonts? Or to the JQuery libary they host? Presumably that also sends
info to Google.

What info they collect and what they do with that data is not clear. Here's an
excerpt from their Google Analytics privacy policy for example

 _" Google Analytics does not report the actual IP address information to
Google Analytics customers. Additionally, using a method known as IP masking,
website owners that use Google Analytics have the option to tell Google
Analytics to only use a portion of the IP address, rather than the entire IP
address, for geolocation."_

[http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en_uk/analytics/privacyoverview...](http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en_uk/analytics/privacyoverview.html)

Notable by omission is what Google do with the anlaytics data themselves, they
presumably capture (and save) the full IP address as well as all the tracking
data they collect.

I've said this many times before: Google has a rapacious appetite to track and
record online behaviour. That doesn't mean they are evil or bad, but it does
mean that their policies on tracking, collecting and recording online data
should not pass without discussion or scrutiny.

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codeonfire
If you are running Google's code in your application and you don't even know
what it does, you probably want to remove that code from your application.
There's a reason that banks don't link in stuff like GA.

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diorray
Interesting question, as an paranoid, I'd comment out all Google related
snippets.

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micronax
I would not call that paranoid. But I think developers who use software like
Twitter's Bootstrap should be aware of feeding information to google while
developing (on their test-servers, eg. local, whatever..)

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Artemis2
Well thought! I'm going to comment them out now!

