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Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

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Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#491

Post by tut-urut-utut »

stingraycharles wrote: post #23
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.

Most of the people using GA wouldn't be able to set it up correctly. I switched my personal site from GA to Microanalytics, since I wanted to avoid spending time trying to figure out how to configure GA to be conformant.

Google should be the one doing the compliance work. If Italy bans some usage pattern in GA, it's Google that should make it impossible to configure it in non-conformant way.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#492

Post by neuronic »

nathanaldensr wrote: post #136
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.

Maybe a race where the finish line is maximum exploitation of the digital population isn't a race worth running.

Yes, let's all marvel at the accomplishment of making everything funded by exploitative and intrusive but largely useless advertisements.

All digital startups are literally doomed without the indiscriminate collection of personal tracking data.

Side note: thank you modern adtech for consistently recommending me products I already bought days and weeks before. Very effective. Gullible companies just keep paying cold hard cash for these garbage recommendation systems because some sales rep talks fluffy about AI and machine learning, it's so mindblowing....

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#493

Post by trasz »

alexklarjr wrote: post #480
kcartlidge wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

EU did everything to start it, established economic blockade of Russia and sending weapons to Ukraine. At this point it is a war between Russia and EU in Ukraine.

Blockade and weapons are consequences of Russian invasion. Russia started this war.

And yes, unfortunately it can't be allowed to persist in its current shape.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#494

Post by trasz »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #190
ronsor wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an American, but I occasionally use an EU VPN. I don't understand how EU residents can tolerate the number of cookie/privacy/GDPR/whatever popups every site has, even on the sites of EU companies.

We Europeans are generally used to do whatever the government tell us. We don't have the same culture as Americans. Don't get me wrong, you had a pretty bad deal as well: without much fanfare, your government grew up so much in the last 200 years that it became the largest employer in the world. You pay loads of taxes (even more than several EU countries) and get very little benefits. And yet, I'm sure that if we wil…

>We Europeans are generally used to do whatever the government tell us.

As opposed to those who used to do whatever the private companies tell them?

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#495

Post by tpxl »

adrr wrote: post #434
rambambram wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How are you tracking returning users without cookies? Also if it’s multi-lingual, how are you storing the language prefs?

> Also if it’s multi-lingual, how are you storing the language prefs?

Cookies you require for functionality (ie. login cookies, language settings) require no consent, but do require to be laid out in a cookie policy.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#496

Post by hnbad »

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.

Nah. The problem here is Google, not analytics in general. You can still use analytics as long as you do it in a privacy-first approach.

These laws also apply to US companies offering their services to in the EU. Frankly, it's about time American companies get reigned in on their privacy abuses. US startup culture has been playing fast and loose with people's data for far too long to disastrous effects.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#497

Post by hnbad »

AdriaanvRossum wrote: post #269
jimnotgym wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this an opportunity for EU startups? By choosing to enforce the law on US companies that EU companies are already generally very compliant with, surely the EU has levelled the playing field for EU companies?

It is. Most startups in the EU have to use more and more businesses in the EU. The selection is little, so way more changes to succeed if your EU based and serve both markets. I run Simple Analytics [1], which is a privacy-first analytics business from the Netherlands. I see a lot of business from the EU just because we are from the EU as well. [1] https://simpleanalytics.com/?ref=hn

Frankly, as a EU company (based in Germany no less) I'm steering clear of any US SaaS whenever possible. Even if they operate in the EU they're usually a legal headache because privacy compliance is added as an afterthought and they'll often carelessly transfer data to US servers based on assumptions that should have been abandoned when Privacy Shield was torn down in the courts.

Out of the big cloud providers only Azure feels even remotely safe to use (if only because of the privacy reputation of Google and Amazon).

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#498

Post by feet »

nerdponx wrote: post #388
jokethrowaway wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

The economy is pretty bad in the USA too if you aren't a white collar tech worker (or in a handful of other white collar fields). Maybe not as bad, but it's pretty rough for a lot of people, possibly a majority, and it's definitely unsustainable.

[flagged]

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#499

Post by the_other »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #288
the_other wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slowing the flow of money out of the public purse and into a very small number of barely accountable global megacorps and private equity funds, whilst improving the employment prospects of the local population, sounds like it's worth the cost of repeat work. Also, nature loves a bit of redundancy. And capitalism loves competition. You can't have competition under a monopoly.

> . And capitalism loves competition. You can't have competition under a monopoly. And the govt. is the biggest monopoly of all. Somehow, restrictions against US firms are praised but if US imposes restrictions that is condemned (e.g. TikTok).

> > . And capitalism loves competition. You can't have competition under a monopoly. > And the govt. is the biggest monopoly of all.

I didn't say shut down the megacorps. Maybe they have use; I don't know. What I do know is they're unaccountable (like the shit bits of government).

If government had to use open systems, the quality of those open systems would improve and compete better with the similar commercial ones. The public (and companies and other countries) then have a choice between the tools from the megacorps and the open tools. The public also gains/improves a resource. More competition. Probably better for everyone.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#500

Post by tpxl »

curiousllama wrote: post #89
dclusin wrote: post #71

Suppose I run a website in the us and a user in Italy connects to it. Does this mean I’m now breaking the law serving them the website? My connection logs now have pii. What if I use a cdn that has points of presence in Italy and still pings my server with a head request and the end user ip? Am I also now breaking Italian law by using google analytics?

IIRC, it basically only applies if you're actively doing business in the EU, or courting future business. So, if you have a personal blog that grabs IPs? Not illegal. If you start a merch shop for your blog (or put in ads/sponsored content, etc.), then the whole site needs to be GDPR compliant.

> If you start a merch shop for your blog (or put in ads/sponsored content, etc.), then the whole site needs to be GDPR compliant.

And you do business in the EU. If you have a merch shop, but don't serve EU users (no EU shipping, not accepting EUR as a currency, no EU specific languages (German, French...), ...) there is no problem.

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