Thinboy00's Journal: Google-analytics

I just found something with AB+ on Slashdot. For those that can't tell, its a 1×1 white GIF image with a domain of http://www.google-analytics.com/. It also took parameters, so it's obviously an advanced web beacon (well, a simple one sitting on an advanced server). The full URL with parameters is very long. I have saved it in a text file. I will not post it because it may contain personal information or session tokens (it's too long and obscure for me to tell what's what). The file was found on the FAQ, specifically the section on advertising. Apparently the full URL matched the "/adverti" filter on AB+ (to get a proper regex out of that, pad it on both sides with ".*" and backslash escape special characters other than the ".*"). So not only is Google tracking when pages are visited, it's tracking which pages people are visiting. When I pasted the URL into a maximized gedit window, it wrapped three times (about 3¼ "pseudolines" total, exactly three pseudolines and five tabs and half a capital B, 19 tabs to a pseudoline), so Google probably has cookies and session data as well. This is scary. I had no idea Google was doing this kind of thing.

Update: I just sent Google a "Why do you use web beacons?" on their help/feedback page. Of course, I have yet to receive an answer