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Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

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Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#441

Post by dx034 »

mhitza wrote: post #240
Taywee wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. They forward through an in-between that obscures it. They argue that because search results are personalized, being able to see the search terms can give you information about the visitor that can compromise their privacy. Google doesn't want anybody violating user privacy except for Google.

If you get your site setup on Google Webmaster tools you will still have access to the search terms. Definitely not as precise as with GA, but should suffice. Unless you want to do per user funnel tracking starting from their search term. Which is pretty privacy invasive.

You can only see visitor numbers per search term, but not information like bounce rates or duration of visits. And that would be really helpful to judge if people may get the wrong impression of your page and bounce if they searched for specific topics.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#442

Post by dx034 »

openplatypus wrote: post #53

While I should be happy with narrative (I run https://wideangle.co , GA alternative), let's be honest. It not banned. Nor is it illegal. It is illegal to use it in such a way that results in Personal Data being siphoned to the US. Is it hard? Yes. Outright illegal? Nah.

But it's enough of a hurdle that many website owners may just decide to go with a EU-based competitor. Certainly a good ruling for the EU tech scene.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#443

Post by kcartlidge »

alexklarjr wrote: post #438
suction wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an EU citizen, I find it to be a huge improvement to detangle my data from US-American entities. Especially with the election of Trump and January 6th. Maybe Americans haven't fully realized what that meant for US-EU relations for the next hundreds of years. The US is just not a politically stable country until further notice.

since when EU became politically stable? Last time i checked you were at war with Russia.

> since when EU became politically stable? Last time i checked you were at war with Russia.

Russia's attack on Ukraine has no relevance at all to whether the EU is or isn't politically stable.

There may be other reasons you can cite, in which case fair enough, but that example is a non-EU third party attacking a non-EU third party. And the EU is not at war with Russia.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#444

Post by dx034 »

adrr wrote: post #435
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?

How many companies use GA as their only analytics system? It isn’t free. It has a free tier.

It's like with Cloudflare. The free Tier is what gets small companies and hobby developers in. And as they know your system but not the one of others, they'll recommend it to use when your company grows or their employer looks for an analytics system.

But I don't think it's predatory. It clearly worked for cloudflare and seems to work for Tailscale (they openly said they're using the same strategy). It would be predatory if others couldn't match that, but I'd argue many competitors could offer free plans for small websites if they wanted to.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#445

Post by xnickb »

cm2012 wrote: post #91

Another decision in a long stream that will make it much harder for EU start-ups companies to catch up to American ones. With absolutely no improvements to actual EU citizen well being.

Let me guess, you're from the US and user surveillance is beneficial to your business so naturally everyone with non-capitalist (read not $$$-centric) ideology is plain wrong. EU startups don't have to "catch up" or even compete with US start ups.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#446

Post by dx034 »

encoderer wrote: post #161

There is really no reason to use Google Analytics anymore. There are many great alternatives now, mine is PanelBear.com. Other people love Fathom and Plausible. It’s great to see some unbundling happen.

I'm still a fan of Matomo. Very powerful, easy to self-host and you get full control over your data. Never tried their managed services though.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#447

Post by Dylan16807 »

scarface74 wrote: post #412
Dylan16807 wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So put systems like that at the end of the list? And they'll require renegotiation or hardware upgrades at some point, so use that as leverage to say no government entities will buy any more unless they meet certain rules about open sourcing and data storage. But really, if a handful of things like that were the only examples that would be wonderful.

So what goes at the beginning of their list and who is going to develop and maintain the equivalent open source software?

> So what goes at the beginning of their list and who is going to develop and maintain the equivalent open source software?

The beginning is any SaaS that started being used in the last 2-3 years. The immediate solution might just be going back to what they had before, if the top priority is privacy.

As far as open source, the existing companies could often be contracted, but if they don't want to open up then the government can put out bids or build a team. If entire countries want to buy something, they can make a market. And that's assuming there isn't already open source software that can do the job, because there often will be.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#448

Post by dx034 »

IX-103 wrote: post #355
jeroenhd wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're perfectly legal if they don't process any PII. If a US company serves static content there's no need to fear the EU; they'll just have to disable illegal external integrations like Google Analytics/Fonts/etc. A company doing business with other companies might find themselves in a position where they can comply perfectly. Not every company needs to collect PII, though these days every company likes to pretend…

When PII includes IP addresses it's kind of hard not to process. How else are you supposed to group metrics over a session (since cookies are also forbidden)? This seems to ban third-party analytics by any US company. The cynic in me feels this is a little convenient in how it advantages EU organizations over foreign ones...

Session cookies are allowed if the user agrees. And if the user doesn't agree, you have no right to process PII to group metrics over a session. That's the big shift here, assuming you have a right to build a profile on a user (or even evaluate their behavior) without their consent is not legal under GDPR.

And as a European, I'm very glad that's the case. I know, we're still not close to compliance with GDPR, but it has changed the privacy discussion more than any other part.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#449

Post by kcartlidge »

DisjointedHunt wrote: post #419
cm2012 wrote: post #91

Another decision in a long stream that will make it much harder for EU start-ups companies to catch up to American ones. With absolutely no improvements to actual EU citizen well being.

The EU hasn’t shaken off their roots in monarchy. Using the power of the state to go after a single private entity since they have a blood feud with said entity and are now finding all sorts of excuses to hit them economically. I’ve been following the cases with regard to privacy in the EU and it’s a complete joke. You have all these onerous rules against any web technology making it near impossible for startups to f…

> The EU hasn’t shaken off their roots in monarchy.

I know, right. I mean obviously the world's most famous royal family (our British one) isn't really a monarchy so that doesn't count. And they certainly don't get previews and vetos on our laws, or given hundreds of millions from the licence fees for offshore wind farms, or own a notable percentage of the land.

As for GDPR, compliance is pretty straightforward provided you aren't being shady to begin with.

And the new UK proposals are much worse and if they go through as they stand will be a nightmare for anyone serving UK visitors.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#450

Post by dmitriid »

justinclift wrote: post #439
lovich wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Italian market doesn’t have to apply to Google USA either. Companies can always choose to ignore a specific nation’s laws[1], they don’t still get access to that nations markets. At the borders the nation state is the one with the guns and firewalls [1] unless you piss off a nation that can project global power, lol if you piss off China or America

First time I've heard of China projecting "global power". Are there cases of it happening?

Apple complying with Chinese laws, and providing Chinese government access to private data.

Google, Facebook etc. being blocked in China.

etc.

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