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Use of Google Analytics declared illegal by French data protection authority

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

#291

Post by jmnicolas »

ironman1 wrote: post #216

There is a privacy-first alternative called: https://simpleanalytics.com/

The cheapest plan is 19€ / month which is twice what I pay for my VPS. Not realistic. It's very easy to rack up bills while building a website: hosting, domain name, Wordpress plugins, analytics, publicity etc

I don't have analytics yet on my site (it's a very recent side project). I didn't want to go the Google route because ethics, now I don't even have the choice (I'm French).

I looked at the self-hosted options but it seems overly complicated (I'm afraid installing them on my VPS will kill perfs), so now I'm considering just writing a script to parse Apache's logs.

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

#292

Post by axiosgunnar »

judge2020 wrote: post #281
AdriaanvRossum wrote: post #233

For who needs a summary of what is happening in the EU [1] 1. Since 2020, it's illegal to send personal data to the US because of the invalidation of the Privacy Shield [2] 2. Google said it was okay in the EU to use anonymized IP addresses 3. The Austrian Data Protection Authority (DSB) [3] ruled differently and waived most of the arguments raised by Google. The DSB ruled that even anonymized IP addresses are person…

If I’m not mistaken, isn’t Google now using Google Ireland Limited as the corporation that houses EU-incoming data, and thus they keep the EU data in datacenters owned by that shell company (and physically within the EU)?

Doesn't matter one single bit, they are still the 100% subsidiary of Alphabet which is legally bound to provide data at the request of US gov agencies.

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

#294

Post by Jack5500 »

kragen wrote: post #77

Note that Wikimedia has been not using Google Analytics since forever because they're concerned about precisely the same privacy problems as the regulators. This other post has more comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30284820 I love that the plaintiff in this case is the "NOYB Association", as in None Of Your Fucking Business, Google.

You might know that already, but NOBY indeed stands for "None of Your Business"(https://noyb.eu/en).

The organisation has been involved in nearly all of the last privacy related rulings in the EU and is a real blessing for consumer rights.

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

#295

Post by paulcole »

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.

Somehow I'm not surprised that my choice of words was jumped on. Let's say "making use of" to keep further pedantry at bay.

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

#296

Post by xaltsc »

can16358p wrote: post #171
xaltsc wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Well, if they want to operate somewhere, they have to follow local rules.

I doubt American companies wouldn't comply with American law, European law is no less important than the American one and I don't see a reason why we should be accommodating towards foreign businesses, especially, again, those of a country which is a threat. Big companies shouldn't serve as a model to follow.

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

#297

Post by M2Ys4U »

yrgulation wrote: post #276

Wondering if this will also apply to gmail, google drive and so on. Also wondering if there is a way to agree to storing my data in the us. Nonetheless it appears that this a good opportunity for an eu based alternative to google analytics. Also what are the implications of cross eu-us chat apps where a person’s name is visible? Doesnt it mean that when a recipient in the us sees the name, the eu person’s data has be…

>Also wondering if there is a way to agree to storing my data in the us.

Consent is always a valid legal basis for the processing, or transfer, of data. But it has to be freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous.

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

#298

Post by SadWebDeveloper »

ironman1 wrote: post #216

There is a privacy-first alternative called: https://simpleanalytics.com/

Here is another a privacy-first alternative that works with a cloud subscription: https://awstats.sourceforge.io/

If your needs exceed the data analyzed by it then you should consider rethinking your "analytics model".

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

#299

Post by ivoras »

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…

It's not as clear cut.

If someone is running a global web site and wants analytics, which of the 2 entities, or both, would he reference in HTML? Even if we're going to region-lock Europe to the European Analytics servers, analytics today often involves some computation done over the entire data set, including both US and the EU, done on the backend. Which backend would that be?

The privacy aspect has become something of a "think of the children" reason for a sort of "Internet xenophobia", as well as creating huge barriers to entry for small companies which cannot comply.

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

#300

Post by paulcole »

martin_a wrote: post #175
paulcole wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, I didn't miss that part. "Next time, I'll really punish you" rarely works until there's actual consequences.
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