Use of Google Analytics declared illegal by French data protection authority • Hacker News Board

Re: Use of Google Analytics declared illegal by French data protection authority

#171

Post by can16358p » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 2:06 PM UTC

xaltsc wrote: post #102

can16358p wrote: post #8

I don't like Google but seriously this whole GDPR thing is getting out of hand. Anyone who's concerned about their data being collected can just block Google-or-like-related domains. Rest is just making life of web developers/admins/tech company owners harder. Especially with these European intentions I frankly believe this is more of a political war against US and US-based companies. (No, I'm not from US as well)

> Rest is just making life of web developers/admins/tech company owners harder. Well, of course, tech companies, especially Google, Facebook, Amazon (and this one doesn't even respect basic work and union regulations and rights) are getting out of hand, making their life harder (if not dismantling them) is the legislator's job. > Especially with these European intentions I frankly believe this is more of a political…

I wasn't referring to FAANG, I was referring to smaller devs/admins who try to keep up with analytics and don't have ridiculous amounts of money to work with lawyers to see what they are doing for analytics for the sake of improving their service might be landing them $1m fines for some new rule in some geographical locations.

Re: Use of Google Analytics declared illegal by French data protection authority

#172

Post by missedthecue » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 2:07 PM UTC

postalrat wrote: post #134

paulcole wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is going to get in “legal hot water” on account of Google Fonts or Google Analytics unless they’re Google themselves or a top 10 ecommerce company some politician wants to make an example of. There’s millions of sites relying on those things. Is the EU going to drag them all into court? This is like saying you never jay walk because you want to avoid the legal hot water. The water isn’t even lukewarm!

Show me a single site that relies on google analytics.

www.airbnb.com

Re: Use of Google Analytics declared illegal by French data protection authority

#173

Post by nickpp » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 2:08 PM UTC

dale_glass wrote: post #95

pyronik19 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think we are in a better place now with GPDR and all these annoying cookie banners all over the place?

Overall, yes. At the very least it's been incredibly enlightening. It's amazing how random websites have 50 "partners" all of which for some reason need to know what I'm doing.

So you think your "enlightenment" is worth the millions of work-hours people are putting in just to read and click a cookie banner they give absolutely not a single crap about?

Re: Use of Google Analytics declared illegal by French data protection authority

#174

Post by can16358p » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 2:08 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #10

can16358p wrote: post #8

I don't like Google but seriously this whole GDPR thing is getting out of hand. Anyone who's concerned about their data being collected can just block Google-or-like-related domains. Rest is just making life of web developers/admins/tech company owners harder. Especially with these European intentions I frankly believe this is more of a political war against US and US-based companies. (No, I'm not from US as well)

> Anyone who's concerned about their data being collected can just block Google-or-like-related domains. What percentage of the general population do you estimate a) will know enough to want to do this and b) will know how to do it?

They don't need to browse the free web as well, but they choose to do.

Re: Use of Google Analytics declared illegal by French data protection authority

#175

Post by martin_a » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 2:09 PM UTC

paulcole wrote: post #62

fhars wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some courts beg to disagree with your position: https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/31/website_fine_google_f...

Oh, wow, didn’t realize 1 website had been fined $100. The legal water is boiling!

You must have missed this part:

> The ruling directs the website to stop providing IP addresses to Google and threatens the site operator with a fine of €250,000 for each violation, or up to six months in prison, for continued improper use of Google Fonts.

So, if you feel brave you can challenge some courts on this.

Re: Use of Google Analytics declared illegal by French data protection authority

#176

Post by Vosporos » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 2:10 PM UTC

p4bl0 wrote: post #72

Sadly I don't see how this decision can be translated into practice, since I strongly doubt the CNIL will be able (or willing) to send formal notice, and fine after a grace period, all French companies that make use of Google Analytics on their website.

nul n'est censé ignorer la loi.

Re: Use of Google Analytics declared illegal by French data protection authority

#177

Post by anothersullivan » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 2:10 PM UTC

calyhre wrote: post #34

aftergibson wrote: post #11

Is anyone using an alternative that provides some basic analytics and isn't likely to get me in legal hot water in the future? I've already offloaded Google Fonts due to the German ruling. I'm happy to self-host piwik if needed, but could that fall foul of regulators?

I've been using [Plausible]( https://plausible.io ) in its self-hosted version for about a month, on a 7M+ page views per month. So far so good

I also just deployed plausible on Fly.io I wrote a [blog post](https://intever.co/blog/plausible-self-hosted-with-fly) and a created a [github](https://github.com/intever/plausible-hosting) repo to document the process

Re: Use of Google Analytics declared illegal by French data protection authority

#178

Post by nickpp » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 2:10 PM UTC

estaseuropano wrote: post #85

can16358p wrote: post #8

I don't like Google but seriously this whole GDPR thing is getting out of hand. Anyone who's concerned about their data being collected can just block Google-or-like-related domains. Rest is just making life of web developers/admins/tech company owners harder. Especially with these European intentions I frankly believe this is more of a political war against US and US-based companies. (No, I'm not from US as well)

I don't like the meat industry, but seriously all these food safety laws are getting out of hand. Anyone who's concerned about salmonella, hormone levels or animal welfare, can just not buy any products that could potentially contain animal products from countries with weak animal welfare or sanitary laws. The rest is just making life of farmers/shops/wholesalers harder. Especially with these European intentions, I f…

Eating tainted meat can kill you. What’s the worst corporations can do by tracking you? Better ads?!

Re: Use of Google Analytics declared illegal by French data protection authority

#179

Post by augustl » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 2:11 PM UTC

tyfon wrote: post #164

sfifs wrote: post #83

A lot of this seems to be coming due to US regulations that compel US registered companies to hand over data from subsidiaries in Europe markets if asked by US intelligence and law enforcement agencies. With these various data locality regulations, i wonder if a standard operating approach could be to split tech companies into 3 legal entities, a technology licensing company, a US registered operations company and a…

The EU part cannot be owned by the US entity since the US government can compel the US mother company to have it's subsidiary hand over data. In fact this is how most of the companies operate already to cheat on taxes. The way microsoft did it for a while here in Norway was to license azure cloud stuff to a sub operator (EVRY) that is completely insulated except for the licensing agreement.

Hmm, that's interesting. I suppose more cloud providers could do something like that, for the benefit of customers and GDPR?

E.g. Amazon already bills me through some Norwegian entity of some kind, to get VAT done right etc.

If they had servers in Norway, I suppose it would have been possible to proxy everything - not just billing - in AWS Norway through this sub operator?

Re: Use of Google Analytics declared illegal by French data protection authority

#180

Post by martin_a » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 2:11 PM UTC

viro wrote: post #149

YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't really matter micro targeting is not effective.

source? Since conventional wisdom disagrees with you.

> conventional wisdom

You mean what the SEA people tell you? Yeah, we'll all probably be out of business tomorrow, if we don't run the whole Google stack.