Cameron Archer, Content Marketing Lead at Tinybird, shares his experience of building internal analytics without using Google Analytics, focusing on privacy and using Tinybird and Retool. Upon joining Tinybird, Archer was informed that the company doesn't use Google Analytics due to privacy concerns and GDPR rulings, opting instead for first-party data collection through Tinybird's Events API and visualization through Retool. He describes the process of replicating Google Analytics views, starting with creating a session-based data structure in Tinybird and then developing a traffic widget that aggregates web events data using SQL-based queries. Archer highlights how Tinybird's capabilities, such as materialized views and parameterized queries, facilitate efficient data handling, while Retool offers easy data visualization for internal analytics. The post details the technical steps, including setting up Retool resource queries and utilizing temporary states to create interactive widgets, aiming to replicate familiar Google Analytics functionalities while maintaining data privacy.