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Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

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Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#371

Post by Nextgrid »

nnq wrote: post #79
closewith wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bizarre idea. Should websites be allowed to opt out of anti-fraud legislation? Anti-money laundering? Human rights protections?

Yes? ...this was the original dream of non-national cyberspace and we almost had a hope at getting it. Then the second chance with web3 but this was also spoiled by people getting too greedy and too nasty too fast. A parallel anonymous-and-free-for-all-but-with-payments-included, smth. like Tor-but-powered-by-IPFSv9-and-Etherv7, will probably emerge in a couple decades done right after a couple failed iterations. Som…

> Then the second chance with web3 but this was also spoiled by people getting too greedy and too nasty too fast.

Maybe the laws & regulations you complain about are actually necessary because otherwise people will keep being greedy & nasty and eventually outnumber honest people?

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#372

Post by autoexec »

snowwrestler wrote: post #354
jeroenhd wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure your take on IP address anonymization. The source states: The Italian SA found that the website operators using GA collected, via cookies, information on user interactions with the respective websites, visited pages and services on offer. The multifarious set of data collected in this connection included the user device IP address along with information on browser, operating system, screen resolution,…

That Google documentation is for the IP anonymization feature of Universal Analytics, which is being sunset in about a year. Google announced earlier this year that Google Analytics 4, its successor, does not log or store IP address at all. I don’t know whether UA or GA4 service was the subject of the Italy case, but I would not be surprised if it was UA. Most sites have not switched over to GA4 yet.

> Google announced earlier this year that Google Analytics 4, its successor, does not log or store IP address at all.

So if I go to a website and it has me load code from Google's servers it's still got to send my IP address to them. I'm not sure why we'd take them at their word that they won't keep that data around (I'd like to see that independently verified). but it'll be sent to the server logs if nothing else. What does not storing the IP address even mean? Do they hash it and store that instead? Do they do a quick lookup and just flag your dossier logging the connection and when it happened before dropping the IP info?

If people care about their privacy I think it's probably best not to send information to Google in the first place. There are alternatives to google analytics after all.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#373

Post by Nextgrid »

kmlx wrote: post #90
eulenteufel wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Venn diagramm of the websites that have a Cookie-Popup right now and the websites that would choose to not be GDPR-compliant is a circle. This change would mean most website couldn't be used by privacy concious people anymore and that the websites in turn are free to track the sh*t out of everyone else. From my perspective that sounds a lot worse. The web is a mandatory part of public live for most people by now…

> This change would mean most website couldn't be used by privacy concious people anymore wouldn’t the market react?

The market would only react if people were actually aware of the privacy violations. This is what the GDPR is trying to address by making data processing require informed consent.

The vast majority of people (some even on HN) have absolutely no clue how advanced the stalking actually is. You hear every so often these anecdotes about people suspecting Facebook of listening to them; it's actually more creepy that the tracking is advanced enough to successfully infer conversations without actually listening in.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#374

Post by Dylan16807 »

scarface74 wrote: post #298
quantum_magpie wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if no one does anything, in 5 years it will be a 1000, in 10 years 5000. As it is right now, the only voice governments hear is that of corpos, and corpos want to preserve the influence of corpos. That's why we need to force the ban on corpo influence. I'd rather pay 1% gdp for a one-time migration to open and free software than pay .01% gdp per corp per year.

Are you going to also train staff to use the new open source software? Where is the open source SalesForce equivalent? Workday? Concur? Device management? Email service? ServiceNow? Time tracking? Photoshop? Are you going to also force every employee to use Linux instead of Mac and Windows? Are you going to tell them to rewrite all of their software and business processes written on top of Oracle and SQL Server? Shou…

How long have they been using each one of those products on average? How about migrating off at the same speed?

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#375

Post by throwntoday »

clairity wrote: post #117

i’d support any legislation that booted google, fb, ms, adobe, salesforce, and a whole host of other surveillance tech companies from any and all levels of government. it’s literally as important as the separation of church and state. in fact, i’d love to see a constitutional amendment explicitly separating corporate interests from governmental ones, in all facets of civic life (e.g., campaign finance).

I agree 100%. I have nearly all google domains blocked in my hosts file and was frustrated to find out google captcha was required on a few government websites. I understand rolling your own can be difficult or expensive but it's the government we're talking about here. They're no strangers to spending.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#376

Post by jasonlotito »

clairity wrote: post #270
lovich wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A car has multiple parts, but it’s still difficult to use if you only use/look at each one separately

if you look carefully, the 3 sentences are disconnected. they don’t form a line of reasoning. if it had been starter, engine, and transmission, maybe you’d have a point, but instead it’s corroded battery, door handle, and tailpipe.

Ah, the ad hominem, never a good sign for the proceeding argument.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#377

Post by inopinatus »

majormajor wrote: post #155
clairity wrote: post #117

i’d support any legislation that booted google, fb, ms, adobe, salesforce, and a whole host of other surveillance tech companies from any and all levels of government. it’s literally as important as the separation of church and state. in fact, i’d love to see a constitutional amendment explicitly separating corporate interests from governmental ones, in all facets of civic life (e.g., campaign finance).

How far does "separating corporate interests from governmental ones" go? Can the government purchase a car? Hire a private corporation to build a road? Hire a consulting company to check the security of their (now-free-and-without-a-support-contract FOSS?) computer setup?

The issue (per original article) is one of data sovereignty, and I’d identify a sibling concern of adopting open data formats.

If those are sacrosanct, the choice of tools vendor matters far less.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#378

Post by inopinatus »

abarwick wrote: post #123
clairity wrote: post #117

i’d support any legislation that booted google, fb, ms, adobe, salesforce, and a whole host of other surveillance tech companies from any and all levels of government. it’s literally as important as the separation of church and state. in fact, i’d love to see a constitutional amendment explicitly separating corporate interests from governmental ones, in all facets of civic life (e.g., campaign finance).

This is just naive. Government offices/agencies are so tightly coupled with packages like office 365 that forcefully separating them would require home built solutions which would always be terrible, less secure, and more expensive to the tax payer. There’s a lot of good these products can provide, granted they are properly audited and have high security requirements.

The legal and moral question is one of data sovereignty, not tools vendor. I suggest the GP comment be read with that context in mind.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#379

Post by bryan_w »

tantalor wrote: post #38
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.

"We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!"

- A French Ned Flanders, probably

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#380

Post by k1w1 »

jakubp wrote: post #215
minsc_and_boo wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that for US- or Italian-based users? What if this is an Italian company running a global website with data from non-GDPR country users?

GDPR covers EU citizens. I don't think it says anything about non-EU citizens.

There is nothing in the GDPR about citizenship. GDPR applies to "data subjects who are in the Union" Art 3(2). So it is the physical location of the person that matters. As a US citizen, if you travel to an EU country on vacation then the GDPR applies to you while you are there.

GDPR also applies to EU based companies for all of their activities - so in addition to limiting US business in the EU, it limits EU businesses in the US.

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