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Austria's data protection authority has found that Google Analytics is illegal

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Re: Austria's data protection authority has found that Google Analytics is illegal

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the consumer know it is zero-knowledge?

> How does the consumer know it is zero-knowledge? The courts, not consumers, are the ultimate deciders in this situation. Companies say so under oath and a judge weighs the evidence.

That's not strictly true - or at least - it's missing a piece.

When a company decides to use a product, it needs to ensure that product is legal to use in their jurisdiction(s).

If it gets to a court, it's likely that the consumer/client is the claimant and the Company who chose to use US Product X is the defendant. The company who makes US Product X is likely nowhere to be seen.

Re: Austria's data protection authority has found that Google Analytics is illegal

#162
post #47
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well part of the ruling is that the "standard contractual clauses", basically an attempt to contract away the regulation is not valid. From the article, it seems to be just conceptually, which gels with my understanding of the GDPR, so it's not going to be just adjusting/appending the legal wording in the TOS to fix that.

> "standard contractual clauses", basically an attempt to contract away the regulation is not valid. how is this suprising? This has been the case in Civil law since atleast napoleonic times. Contracts do not declare laws or rights invalid, unless these exceptions are defined in said law.

of course, companies will try their luck right up until somebody loses a meaningful amount of money. I assume this ruling is gearing up and posturing towards major judgements against google should they fail to follow through

Re: Austria's data protection authority has found that Google Analytics is illegal

#163
post #47
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well part of the ruling is that the "standard contractual clauses", basically an attempt to contract away the regulation is not valid. From the article, it seems to be just conceptually, which gels with my understanding of the GDPR, so it's not going to be just adjusting/appending the legal wording in the TOS to fix that.

> "standard contractual clauses", basically an attempt to contract away the regulation is not valid. how is this suprising? This has been the case in Civil law since atleast napoleonic times. Contracts do not declare laws or rights invalid, unless these exceptions are defined in said law.

This is only sort of a half-truth though. The SCC's are created by the European Data Protection Board, and it works for transfers to third countries because the companies legally say "ok we won't do anything shady with your data" - but you have to actually prove that they can't be compelled to do anything shady under local law - which you can in the US.

So the SCC's are a perfectly fine tool, but you just need more than that.

Re: Austria's data protection authority has found that Google Analytics is illegal

#165
post #64

I guess Plausible.io and similar are going to be drowning in cash in the next few months.

Looks great! But I feel that $9/month (up to 10k views) is a bit much for my personal website... I pay that much to Google now, but I get a whole suite of tools besides analyticsm, like email addresses (for my whole family under our surname as a domain, which is cool), my own domain (via GogoDaddy, but I got that via Google and pay Google only) and all the small business office tools they offer (though I think those…

Oh, it seems they raised their prices. I think I'm still on the old plan, cause I pay $48/year.

Still, it looks like the cheapest option out there. Matomo costs €19/month, Fathom - $14/month (or $140/year), Piwik Pro has a free option, but they're very enterprise oriented, not sure if they're good for small sites

Re: Austria's data protection authority has found that Google Analytics is illegal

#166

I am not aware of an automatic and immediate adoption of an EU member state's rulings for the whole EU. Headline seems wrong, but maybe what it means to say is that such an adoption is 100% sure?

This is true - but courts have been going in this direction for a while now, and noyb has filed 100+ similar suits. Expect most of the legal landscape to agree with this in the not-so-distant future.

Re: Austria's data protection authority has found that Google Analytics is illegal

#167
post #16

Thank you Max Schrems for everything you do to preserve EU citizens' privacy and compliance of companies to European law!

Quoted post unavailable.

Honestly? Move to the US if you want to be a libertarian. You'll be happier.

Re: Austria's data protection authority has found that Google Analytics is illegal

#168
I maybe in the minority here, but I believe that this is not good for the average European and definitely not good for the European tech scene. Europe is already a more complicated place to launch a new company as you have to support multiple languages, countries etc. just to get to the potential market size you have in the US. Strict regulations are that are complicated to implement means that more new companies will choose to launch and build themselves up in the US first. By the time they come to Europe they will already be big and established and can afford to implement the complicated infrastructure that is necessary to support cross continent data storage (or ignore the regulation and pay the fines) while eating up all the small startups that were trying to capture the EU market while dealing with masses amounts of regulation and red tape.

Now to be very clear! I am not against most of GDPR. But some of the interpretations of it have gone too far and it will hurt Europeans in the long run.

This is actually one of the best things that can happen to companies like google and Microsoft as they can afford to develop the infrastructure to support easy geo based cross continent data storage - and they can then sell it as part of their cloud offerings.

Re: Austria's data protection authority has found that Google Analytics is illegal

#169

I maybe in the minority here, but I believe that this is not good for the average European and definitely not good for the European tech scene. Europe is already a more complicated place to launch a new company as you have to support multiple languages, countries etc. just to get to the potential market size you have in the US. Strict regulations are that are complicated to implement means that more new companies wil…

Geo-based cross continent data storage isn't enough. The fact that the parent company is a US entity still makes it illegal, no matter where the data is stored.

Re: Austria's data protection authority has found that Google Analytics is illegal

#170
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have IRC and it shines bright! But seriously: Google just needs to move the problematic part of their EU business into EU and start complying.

it is not so easy for Google. The US side will always demand stuff from them. At least for having the ability. Microsoft once had the right™ offering: Deutsche Telekom running the Azure data center, so it's the same software etc., but legally fully separated. Didn't get many customers (I don't know what kind of restrictions there were)

AFAIK that company only ever had one customer: the German government.
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