What data is sent to Google Analytics?

Question

Has anyone found any documentation or research about what data is transfered to Google Analytics when it's added to a site. The main thing I'm wondering about is post data, but the details of exactly what is sent would be useful.

I'm considering implementing it on a sites that have a lot of private data on them. I'm wondering what data Google will capture, if any. (The sites are login only.) I'm needing proof so I can provided to the users.

Answer 1

The official information can be found here

The visitor tracking information that you can get in the Google Analytics reports depends on Javascript code that you include in your website pages, referred to as the Google Analytics Tracking Code (GATC). Initial releases of the GATC used a Javascript file called urchin.js.

That script is then discussed in detail in that blog, and Google Analytics Help group can also provide some details.

a More detailed list of what that javascript collect is listed here.

Answer 2

I found the official google documentation here:

http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/gaTrackingTroubleshooting.html

i also found this very discussion VERY useful:

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google%20Analytics/thread?tid=5f11a529100f1d47&hl=en

helped me find out WTF utmcc actually DID

Answer 3

All info passes via URL and post params:

Cache page

1

utmac

UA-745459-1

utmcc

__utma=52631473.656111131.1231670535.1235325662.1235336522.264;+__utmz=52631473.1235287959.257.8.utmccn =(organic)|utmcsr=google|utmctr=site:domain.com|utmcmd=organic;+

utmcs

windows-1255

utmdt
page title

utmfl

10.0 r12

utmhid

1524858795

utmhn

www.domain.com

utmje

1

utmn

1273285258

utmp

/shakeit/?

utmr

0

utmsc

32-bit

utmsr

1280x800

utmul

en-us

utmwv

1.3

Host

www.google-analytics.com

User-Agent

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.0.6) Gecko/2009011913 Firefox/3.0.6 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

Accept

image/png,image/;q=0.8,/*;q=0.5

Accept-Language

en-us,en;q=0.5

Accept-Encoding

gzip,deflate

Accept-Charset

ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7

Keep-Alive

300

Connection

keep-alive

Referer

http://www.hadash-hot.co.il/shakeit/?&page=1

Pragma

no-cache

Cache-Control

no-cache

Answer 4

look at http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js under the function urchinTracker and you'll see what's going on :)

Answer 5

I recommend trying the Google Chrome extension: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/jnkmfdileelhofjcijamephohjechhna

This extension will provide debug information for all of the data sent to google analytics. It's especially helpful when you are adding new analytics features and want to verify they are working the way you expect them to.