• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, March 29, 2005

Two separate Web analytics firms moved in the market on Monday: WebTrends, acquired by NetIQ in 2001, went private, and Urchin Software Corp. was acquired by search engine giant Google.

Terms of the Google deal weren't disclosed, but some commentators speculate that the company sold for around $30 million, while it cost investment company Francisco Partners $94 million to take WebTrends private.

Certainly, neither deal is in the pre-bust price range -- when NetIQ announced in January 2001 it would purchase WebTrends in an all-stock deal, the value was pegged at $1 billion. Yet the recent moves suggest at least that the surge in online advertising has created a renewed interest in analytics.

But marketers should keep in mind that analytics could be facing increasing consumer push-back -- JupiterResearch recently reported that the majority of Web users in a survey deleted cookies at least once in the last year, while 10 percent deleted them every day.

Why the resistance? Some marketers say that, with all of the talk of adware and spyware, consumers are acting under the mistaken impression that cookies are harmful. Online ad executives say that it's up to the industry to convince consumers that cookies can be helpful. How can marketers do so? By promoting the benefit of "relevant" ads, they say.

Perhaps. But consumers might not cede information about themselves so easily. After all, information is power -- and consumers have heard report after report about how marketers use that power to the detriment of some customers. For instance, setting prices based on ZIP code, or offering preferred rates to some people.

Until advertisers can convince the public that market research has a public benefit, Web analytics companies such as Urchin and WebTrends will be increasingly irrelevant.