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

#31

Post by jurmous » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 1:10 PM UTC

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?

We host Matomo (formerly called Piwik) ourselves. And we also host the fonts we use ourselves. Since we are a healthcare based startup we prefer not to share any data outside of our controlled servers.

We even disabled the cookie based tracking inside Matomo at the cost of not linking different visit sessions. Same session visits are fully tracked though. Saves us a cookie warning.

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

#32

Post by acdha » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 1:11 PM UTC

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.

This requires a level of access and technical skill which most people don’t have. If you have ever tried doing this, think about how many sites break because they have code which assumes GA calls always succeed and then ask what percentage of the population would be able to identify and work around those problems.

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

#33

Post by tpetry » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 1:11 PM UTC

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)

> 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)

Yes, that's happening, and it's a good one. Privacy Shield was cancelled because of Schrems II. The US simply don't care (intentionally?) to protected any data of people not living in the US. With FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) or "Executive Order 12333" they can get every data they want, even silently. Disclosing that a company had to handover any data will get them prison time.

This is against the intention and protection the EU set for european people. So if a company is violating these terms, it's good to take action.

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

#34

Post by calyhre » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 1:12 PM UTC

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

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

#35

Post by paulcole » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 1:14 PM UTC

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?

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!

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

#36

Post by tobiaslins » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 1:14 PM UTC

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 am working on splitbee.io :)

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

#37

Post by qiqitori » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 1:14 PM UTC

AndrewDucker wrote: post #15

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)

People shouldnt need to be experts in data collection or computing in order to have their data treated fairly. If Google can't protect user's tracking data (and they can't - the US law won't let them) then they shouldn't be allowed to hold it.

People shouldn't have to be experts in this stuff either just to put up a website somewhere, or worse keep up with every new ruling.

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

#38

Post by RandomLensman » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 1:15 PM UTC

heurisko wrote: post #21

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)

> 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) No, Germany is a big leader in the EU. They are very sensitive to issues around privacy, from the DDR era. They don't want private corporations having DDR-like folders of information on citizens.

But successive German governments really like the state to collect all communications data - so the sensitivity is very one-sided.

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

#39

Post by martijnvds » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 1:16 PM UTC

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?

Self-hosting something is always going to be less complex, but you'll still need to determine what you're tracking and why, write that down in a form people can understand easily, and let people opt in explicitly (with a just-as-easy way to opt out later).

People don't have to opt in for you to keep the data for technical reasons, for instance if you keep IP addresses for while to find and block abuse, but you can't keep data longer than strictly necessary and can't use the data for other purposes than you declared beforehand.

Write down your policies and put them in an (again, easy to read, understand and find) privacy statement and you should be pretty much GDPR-proof.

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

#40

Post by himinlomax » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 1:17 PM UTC

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)

The CNIL was created in the 1970s. The main thing the GDPR has done is give it a lot more teeth. So in effect data privacy has been the law for over 40 years now. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse, not for such large corporations in particular.