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Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

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Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#511

Post by scarface74 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #447
scarface74 wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 go…

So now you want the government to “build a team” of competent software engineers and the government is going to have to compete with the private sector for talent. The average enterprise framework developer in the US costs at least 3 times as much as the average teacher.

Now on the other hand, return offers for interns at my BigTech company is around $150K. The average salary for the superintendent of schools for larger cities is $167K. Where is the government going to get the money to compete with the private sector?

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#512

Post by denton-scratch »

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 Analytics 4, its successor, does not log or store IP address at all.

The fact that it receives the IP address at all renders it illegal in Italy, and probably anywhere GDPR is in force. And IP address truncation doesn't get you anywhere; it's Google that does the truncating, so the whole address is actually sent to Goo, by which time it has departed from GDPR jurisdiction.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#513

Post by Dylan16807 »

scarface74 wrote: post #511
Dylan16807 wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 go…

So now you want the government to “build a team” of competent software engineers and the government is going to have to compete with the private sector for talent. The average enterprise framework developer in the US costs at least 3 times as much as the average teacher. Now on the other hand, return offers for interns at my BigTech company is around $150K. The average salary for the superintendent of schools for lar…

I'm pretty sure the context here was entire countries switching, not single school districts. The money is there.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#514

Post by BlueTemplar »

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #433
kixiQu wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if anyone is curious about why that gives the govt. access: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act (God willing they repeal it, even if only for the international commerce implications...)

something I'm not getting here. If you buy a EU engineered IoT home appliance that has PII including, whether a user is presently inside their home, then every company I know operating in this market uses US based clouds (what other options are there LOL) to do things like digital twin or device shadows but by using a local availability zone. So this is very different than GA, but depending on the threat-model can be…

> what other options are there LOL

This blogpost lists a few :

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27393854

Also, even if no options were available, it's not like the law would care - the illegality of it has been advertised for years...

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#515

Post by BlueTemplar »

hnbad wrote: post #497
AdriaanvRossum wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 A…

Wait, why would Microsoft have a better reputation ?

Because (NSA aside), they have been caught less often transferring private information and "stolen" company secrets to third parties ?

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#516

Post by scarface74 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #513
scarface74 wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So now you want the government to “build a team” of competent software engineers and the government is going to have to compete with the private sector for talent. The average enterprise framework developer in the US costs at least 3 times as much as the average teacher. Now on the other hand, return offers for interns at my BigTech company is around $150K. The average salary for the superintendent of schools for lar…

I'm pretty sure the context here was entire countries switching, not single school districts. The money is there.

In the US, congressmen make $170K a year, the president makes around $400K a year. Junior developers at large tech companies can make $170K easily in year one or two. Senior developers at tech companies make $400K+. Is the government going to pay tech workers enough to compete?

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#517

Post by alexklarjr »

suction wrote: post #483
alexklarjr wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Putin's disinformation really worked wonders on you.

My opinion is irrelevant, it is what Putin’s generals think. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/russia-ukraine-war/moscow-says-eu-n...

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#518

Post by alexklarjr »

trasz wrote: post #493
alexklarjr wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So it is war then?

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#519

Post by adrr »

tpxl wrote: post #495
adrr wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Persistent preferences require consent and is considered tracking. Only auth doesn’t. Go visit any government site and they have cookie banners for their preferences cookies.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#520

Post by PontifexMinimus »

eggsome wrote: post #384
PontifexMinimus wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Standard is microsoft office Then change it. By law if need be, and have all government departments go over to Libre Office at the same time.

They tried that, but the question is how do you write the law? In the end they settled on requiring that govt. departments use ISO standards to store docs (which at the time was only ODF). Microsoft then tried to get their format ratified as an ISO standard. But everyone complained that their spec did not actually specify how to implement, instead it said things like "In accordance with output from Word 2007". So aft…

> but the question is how do you write the law?

I would have defined Libre Office as the reference implementation. Other software is allowed to the extent it reads/writes those files formats correctly.

I would also have mandated open source.

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