I can in no way speak for the plugin group in any official capacity, I have no relationship with them at all.
But IMHO, it would be breaking the rules unless it occurred only as an opt in option. Using GA is still essentially “phoning home”, albeit in an indirect manner. “Phoning Home”, except on an opt in basis, is expressly forbidden.
Just my opinion FWIW though, I am essentially a nobody in the WP hierarchy. If you could present advantages to the user for opting in, you may find a fair number of users might actually opt in, so it may be worth a try on that basis.
For my opinion collecting GA stats is no “phoning home”, because of it is anonymous data, only behaviour, without any user data. It helps to do plugin better.
Do you know who can confirm my suggestion?
Fair point, though the guidelines do not say phoning home is OK if data is collected anonymously. For a better opinion have a look about at make.wordpress.org/plugins/. You can get an idea of who’s who and possibly directly contact someone through their profile, or find a topical post and leave a comment/inquiry.
I read guidelines one more time and found, that collect data is OK if user opt-in. I think opt-in at activation process would be fine.
