Ian Thomas and Reeves Little today confirmed that MSN AdCenter is alpha testing a new analytics tool, codenamed Gatineau. Based on technology acquired from DeepMetrix and likely to be a direct competitor to Google Analytics, its unsurprising that details are being kept quiet at this early stage in development.

Here's a few extra things we've heard:

• Performance tracking of AdCenter keywords 
• Website profiles for tracking multiple sites (similar to Google Analytics)
• Permission based control around reports and settings on a per site basis using Windows Live ID

As Ian points out, this is a pre-beta product so subject to change. If you're interested in beta testing it in the future, he has included his email address in his blog post.

All we need now is AdCenter to syndicate MSN's Content Ads onto non-Microsoft sites and Google may have a serious competitor. It shouldn't come as a surprise to learn that the AdCenter team has been researching this topic with site owners, though how long until we see an AdCenter powered publisher network is still uncertain.