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Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

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Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#21

Post by leephillips »

V__ wrote: post #9
lmkg wrote: post #6

This is consistent with decisions from the Austrian and French data protection authorities (DPAs). Note that Google is a Processor (for this product), meaning that Google itself does not violate GDPR, but only the websites that use it. Following the Schrems II case, the "threat model" used by EU courts on these matters is "American law enforcement can serve a warrant to American companies." Long story short, any proc…

> meaning that Google itself does not violate GDPR, but only the websites that use it. This is so baffling to me. Google has subsidiaries in the EU. The fact that it's ok to give a product to a EU client which can't be used in accordance with the law, and the client is responsible, is just idiotic.

I don’t find it idiotic. It was the client’s decision to spy on its users. I have no sympathy for companies who make that decision.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#22

Post by robin_reala »

shadowgovt wrote: post #14
humanistbot wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be compliant, Google can just set up data centers specific to GA in one of those EU subsidiaries, so GA admins can choose to have their visitors' data stored only in an EU data center (and promise to not transfer that data to the US). This wouldn't be that hard to do.

Building out the infrastructure necessary for Cloud to be compliant with region-stored data was a multi-year project. Huge swathes of Google's architecture (especially its legacy architecture) have deeply-ingrained location-agnosticism assumptions. It turns out to be extremely complex and expensive to remove those assumptions given the way Google handles data once it hits their datacenter fabric. (Not impossible, min…

It’s coming up to a decade since Schrems I, six years since GDPR, and four years since enforcement of GDPR. For a company like Google the writing has been on the wall for a lot longer than a weekend. They’ve simply been gambling that they can get away with it, and now that argument is collapsing.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#23

Post by stingraycharles »

corywatilo wrote: post #18

Italy is the 4th in a string of recent decisions across the EU. (We're tracking these cases on isgoogleanalyticsillegal.com along with details for each.) Note that it's not illegal to use GA entirely, just illegal to use in its default state which transmits PII to the US.

That is an extremely important nuance which is not obvious from the title.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#24

Post by leephillips »

Good. US citizens should be, at least, disappointed that their government is so bad at protecting their privacy, that US law is so far behind the times.

To those companies and people who find these EU decisions baffling or inconvenient: tough. If you had had respect for your users this would not be an issue. You would already not be spying on them.

To website visitors: if you see a cookie banner, the site is asking permission to spy on you. If that concerns you, close the tab.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#25

Post by gretch »

V__ wrote: post #9
lmkg wrote: post #6

This is consistent with decisions from the Austrian and French data protection authorities (DPAs). Note that Google is a Processor (for this product), meaning that Google itself does not violate GDPR, but only the websites that use it. Following the Schrems II case, the "threat model" used by EU courts on these matters is "American law enforcement can serve a warrant to American companies." Long story short, any proc…

> meaning that Google itself does not violate GDPR, but only the websites that use it. This is so baffling to me. Google has subsidiaries in the EU. The fact that it's ok to give a product to a EU client which can't be used in accordance with the law, and the client is responsible, is just idiotic.

What about Italian websites that serve customers outside of Italy?

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#26

Post by ryanmcbride »

I've been using clicky on a few of my sites and even though they _assure_ me that it's totally compliant with gdpr I don't really believe them, does anyone have a decent alternative for analytics that respects people's privacy? I just want to see when I get new vs returning visitors on a page. Cloudflare's analytics are okay but I like how granular clicky can get, but if there's no good way to do that I think I'm just gonna ditch clicky and make do with the cdn analytics. Hell, I bet the cdn already does everything I need and I just don't know how to use it right, or I'm not paying for the right tier or something.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#27

Post by closewith »

tin7in wrote: post #12

We are based in Europe and self-host our analytics exactly for this reason. I feel this is just the beginning.

Unfortunately, you can't self-host the integration with Google Ads or Search Console, which locks anyone who relies on Google (or Facebook, Microsoft, etc) Ads into the use of Google Analytics/Ads tracking.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#29

Post by V__ »

leephillips wrote: post #21
V__ wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> meaning that Google itself does not violate GDPR, but only the websites that use it. This is so baffling to me. Google has subsidiaries in the EU. The fact that it's ok to give a product to a EU client which can't be used in accordance with the law, and the client is responsible, is just idiotic.

I don’t find it idiotic. It was the client’s decision to spy on its users. I have no sympathy for companies who make that decision.

> It was the client’s decision to spy on its users.

Calling it spying is a little far-fetched I think, when the problem was the transfer ip addresses to US servers, not Analytics itself.

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