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Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

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Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#31

Post by shadowgovt »

robin_reala wrote: post #22
shadowgovt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh, no doubt. They've 100% been gambling that they could get away with it. The GDPR has deviated increasingly from what their leadership assumed would be a reasonable position (it continues to drift from the American centroid belief on who owns what data; for Americans, the notion that you can use other people's computers without them keeping records of how you used their computers is kinda weird, and Americans lack the direct historical experience to have the kinds of concerns about mass-citizen-tracking that Europe does).

My prediction is that as things move forward, they're going to find it isn't worth their money to offer Analytics for European customers if the GDPR continues to make that more onerous (especially since the monetization story of Analytics for Google is so threadbare) and just offer it for customers in other countries while Europe does its own thing. Win-win.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#32

Post by tempestn »

gostsamo wrote: post #20
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.

No, they can't as far as I get it. The american cloud act entitles US law enforcement to serve orders to US companies and their foreign branches. So, if you are american with a company in the EU, the important part is that you are an american, not that the company is in a foreign jurisdiction.

Perhaps Google could license a third party in the EU to host analytics for EU customers?

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#33

Post by V__ »

gretch wrote: post #25
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.

What about Italian websites that serve customers outside of Italy?

If they serve customers outside the EU, then they should comply with those laws or not serve them at all.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#34

Post by rambambram »

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.

Congrats. We also chose to do the analytics ourselves. No tracking, no cookie banners, and probably better stats as well. One thing that Google did very cleverly was to only give GA users the search terms that visitors used to end up on their site.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#35

Post by closewith »

gostsamo wrote: post #20
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.

No, they can't as far as I get it. The american cloud act entitles US law enforcement to serve orders to US companies and their foreign branches. So, if you are american with a company in the EU, the important part is that you are an american, not that the company is in a foreign jurisdiction.

Yes, specifically the CLOUD (Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data) Act, which was enacted following a case in 2014 where Microsoft refused to hand over emails stored in the EU (Ireland, in that case) on foot of a domestic US warrant.

The CLOUD Act expressly brings data stored by US-based companies anywhere in the world under the purview of US warrants and subpoenas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#36

Post by vkou »

nwellnhof wrote: post #30

What's really puzzling is that Google Analytics never got banned because of antitrust laws. It's the most obvious example of predatory pricing I've ever seen. How is a smaller company supposed to compete against a free product?

One broad view is that anti-trust is supposed to protect consumers, not competitors.

If a competitor can't produce a quality product that people will pay for, consumers aren't being harmed by the prevalence of a free good-enough product.

In a consumer-protection world where a free and open source Linux had 98% market share in the OS market, Microsoft or Apple would have no leg to stand on to sue its developers over anti-trust. In a competitor-protection world, they would.

The US views anti-trust through a very consumer-focused lens[1], the EU sometimes views it through a more competitor-focused one.

[1] This doesn't mean I agree with it, and there are obvious problems with trying to prove harm in a court of law, if no alternative exists.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#37

Post by ClumsyPilot »

MrQuimico wrote: post #17
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.

The problem is not only the geo location of the datacenters. As long as these subsidiaries are under the control of a USA corporation, this is illegal, since the USA corporation can be requested by the USA gov to share any data they may have not matter where it's stored. Only options are a 100% GDPR compliant solution (European or from a country with similar laws) or self-host. Hopefully another Privacy Shield like a…

> another Privacy Shield

its real name should have been privacy hole

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#38

Post by tantalor »

nwellnhof wrote: post #30

What's really puzzling is that Google Analytics never got banned because of antitrust laws. It's the most obvious example of predatory pricing I've ever seen. How is a smaller company supposed to compete against a free product?

Lots of ways? Better features, better support, better performance.

If you can't beat the free offering, then go home.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#39

Post by [deleted] »

ryanmcbride wrote: post #26

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 jus…

[deleted]

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#40

Post by ClumsyPilot »

ryanmcbride wrote: post #26

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 jus…

matomo is something you can self host
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