Google Analytics

Benchmark review. Giants are reviewed rarely, to show what the tools in the directory are measured against. This one is not listed in the directory, and it is an example, not a recommendation. Scores are our opinion on the six questions, based on public sources and dated October 2026.

A shopkeeper with a hand clicker at the door can tell you how many people came in and nothing about who they were, and Google Analytics is that clicker wired to one of the largest advertising companies. It measures visits to a website or app, and Google's help pages say it collects first-party cookies, data about the device and browser, the IP address, and on-site or in-app activity, though they say IP addresses are not logged or stored.

Google Analytics scores a 3 on delivery, a 2 on footprint, lock-in, self-direction and longevity and a 1 on power. By default its tags set two cookies, _ga and _ga_ followed by a container ID, and both last two years, though an admin can change that from immediately up to 25 months. Google says it does not share Analytics data without the customer's authorization and acts as a data processor under GDPR, and it describes sharing settings that customers control, with the caveat that data may still be used as needed to maintain and protect the service.

Customers may also choose to use the data for personalization or advertising. Retention can be shortened or lengthened, and deleting one person's data through the User Deletion API or the User Explorer report does not delete the aggregate data tied to that person, such as the pages they visited. We did not read the terms of service in full or the export options, so the lock-in score is cautious.

In practice it is a free dashboard with a long reach, set up by pasting a tag into your pages, and it lives in an account at a company that sells advertising. As of November 2026 this is our opinion, based on public sources, and if you spot an error, write to hello@toolsforconviviality.org and we will check it and correct it. Compare it with the tools in Website analytics.

What stands out

• First-party cookies that last two years by default
• Google says customers control sharing, and data may be used for advertising if they choose
• Deleting one person's data does not delete the aggregate data tied to them

Side by side. Google Analytics vs GoatCounter