Originally Posted by Azoy?

Google Analytics is not free. It doesn't cost you anything to use but in return you are sending information to Google about your site and how users including location, keywords, and how those users found your site as well as if they used another search engine besides Google.
They use all this information to become a better search engine.
So it may not cost you anything directly but you are paying Google back with information about your site so it's not really free. Call it exchange of information ;)