Google needs to do what apple is doing with PrivateRelay and putting double blind proxies in place so PII can be stripped before Google gets its hands on it.
Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics
401–410 of 614 posts
Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics
#402Earlier quoted context omitted.
When PII includes IP addresses it's kind of hard not to process. How else are you supposed to group metrics over a session (since cookies are also forbidden)? This seems to ban third-party analytics by any US company. The cynic in me feels this is a little convenient in how it advantages EU organizations over foreign ones...
Do you have a source on PII including IP addresses?
The article says it:
“The Italian SA reiterated that an IP address is a personal data”
Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics
#403Regarding forbidden countries, it’s not forbidden in the Netherlands, yet. They will announce a verdict in a form of a report by the end of 2022 [1]. To give people an option and pink something else over Google Analytics, I have built an alternative, Simple Analytics [2]. It doesn’t use cookies or any form of tracking and you get still the useful data that 80% of the website owners need. [1] https://autoriteitpersoon…
How do you track "visitors"?
Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics
#404I’m supporting of privacy, but it’s amazing how heavy-handed European regulation can be, and how difficult it can make understanding even basic metrics about our business and how those metrics have shifted over time. I suppose their intentions are good though.
Suppose you had an internal tracking library, aggragating data fetch from your own site and mobile clients, all data saved in a data center managed by your country's most reliable provider. EU directives would be a no-brainer.
That scenario has always been an option, and would be the most common case if Google didn't provide their own service for free or at cost. What's happening with the EU feels disruptive only because Google had such an unatural position in the market.
Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics
#405Earlier quoted context omitted.
How long have they been using each one of those products on average? How about migrating off at the same speed?
So let’s take the lottery systems. Most states including mine has been using the same back end for the lottery since 1991. Who is going to write the replacement? Who is going to audit it? How much is it going to cost to replace literally thousand of lottery terminals? And what benefit would it be? I can’t think of the name of the company now. But there is one company that manage the school lunch programs. Who is goin…
So put systems like that at the end of the list?
And they'll require renegotiation or hardware upgrades at some point, so use that as leverage to say no government entities will buy any more unless they meet certain rules about open sourcing and data storage.
But really, if a handful of things like that were the only examples that would be wonderful.
Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics
#406Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would say it has more in common with the Microsoft antitrust case. In that they gave IE away for free. I think you can show Google has monopoly on search and search data and GA is the only analytics allowed to connect with that. Is it dumping? Yes. They don’t intend to raise the price, but they get paid not in cash but in terms of increasing their monopoly by having so much data on us. Now a lot of things are like…
IE is no more but the price for browsers is still free. Most consumers even at the time also did not pay for their browser. Now these days it would be ridiculous if your device or operating system didn't come with a browser. > They get paid not in cash but in terms of increasing their monopoly by having so much data on us Yes, and anyone else can do the same.
The landscape has changed (or to pun... the netscape?).
We now have genuine browser competition. I think Safari and Firefox are just enough to say Chrome is not a monopoly. I write this on FF right now (running on Ubuntu) because it is a viable alternative.
This is the case for now, might be different in 2023.
"X is free" is not enough to be a problem on it's own.
Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics
#407Another 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.
Yikes... Have you ever heard of some of the alternatives?
I self-host Plausible which is GDPR compliant and gives me all of the features that Google Analytics is actually good for. There is so much bloat in GA that provides absolutely no extra value.
I'm skeptical that this is a bad deal for EU citizens.
[EDIT] missing and
Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics
#408Earlier quoted context omitted.
GDPR covers EU citizens. I don't think it says anything about non-EU citizens.
There is nothing in the GDPR about citizenship. GDPR applies to "data subjects who are in the Union" Art 3(2). So it is the physical location of the person that matters. As a US citizen, if you travel to an EU country on vacation then the GDPR applies to you while you are there. GDPR also applies to EU based companies for all of their activities - so in addition to limiting US business in the EU, it limits EU busines…
If it is physical location, that is something you cannot possibly know for a user, due to VPNs. You might know that a person is logged in and registered with a US address, but you don't know if they are traveling (they might even VPN via the US because it is convenient for work).
So I guess you need to assume this applies for all visitors.
Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics
#409Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not generally, but they do apply to Google Italia, who would not legally be allowed to respond to requests from Google USA for European PII.
Yes, the Italian law that prohibits sending data abroad applies to Google Italia, but Google USA is submitted to the USA law, that says that the USA government can request any data from Google Italia and they are required to get it. So the existence of Google USA makes Google Italia operation illegal.
...in USA.
Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics
#410Another 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.
That's assuming a European GDPR-compliant alternative to Google analytics wouldn't arise. But of course it will. It's not even a very difficult product to build. If anything this is both sticking it to Google and creating opportunities for European startups to fill the void.