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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

#501

Post by verdverm »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #409
verdverm wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since everyone is spying on everyone, what's the ethical or moral issue here?

The issue would be, that the website developers / their management contributes to the issue, by enabling partier to do that spying. If no data was send to another party, then spying on that data is much harder and probably unattractive for most use-cases. GA data becomes valuable through collecting from many many senders. While the people doing the spying are already doing something ethically very questionable, the p…

So you are saying the US intelligence agencies have some unfettered access to all of GA data? Or that it is sent unencrypted and intercepted in transit?

It's not the DNS calls or phone companies that are more to worry about?

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

#502

Post by mekkkkkk »

mediascreen wrote: post #412

I think we (in the EU) will soon realise the bizarre consequences of these regulations. European startups will not be able to use standard SaaS or PaaS tools (like AWS, Azure, Mailchimp, PayPal etc) if they are based in the US (like most of them are). No cloud services, no Office 365 or Google Workspace. It will take forever to build up a similar ecosystem in Europe and I think most successful European entrepreneurs…

Shaking up the current situation doesn't seem to be an entirely bad thing. As it stands, the majority of the internet is depending/residing on datacenters provided by a handful of companies. I'm not sure that's a good thing.

Building satisfactory alternatives to Office, Workspaces etc. isn't a monumental task by any stretch. With the sudden demand that you predict, they'll spring up like weeds.

This might be ham-fisted and crude, but in the end I see a lot of positives.

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

#503

Post by croes »

someotherperson wrote: post #311
eps wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the privacy-first analytics tool Don't be coy. Call it what it is - an analytics service . And as such it falls largerly in the same bucket as GA, because if someone's using Simple Analytics, my surfing data - against my wishes - is being shared with some random third party. Whether it's less, more or comparably evil as GA is secondary.

Yes, and when you go shopping and pay with cash in a store with no surveillance, your shopping habits are being shared against your wishes with a random third party (the external company bookkeeper). It's disingenuous to have problems with websites collecting entirely anonymous browsing data -- that goes beyond any arguments for privacy and just steers into "yelling at clouds" territory.

Nope, the external company bookkeeper doesn't know which of the hundreds or thousands transactions are done by me. He doesn't even know how often I bought something. And even if, that knowledge is nothing compared to the millions of data points of services like google analytics.

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

#504

Post by iofiiiiiiiii »

mediascreen wrote: post #412

I think we (in the EU) will soon realise the bizarre consequences of these regulations. European startups will not be able to use standard SaaS or PaaS tools (like AWS, Azure, Mailchimp, PayPal etc) if they are based in the US (like most of them are). No cloud services, no Office 365 or Google Workspace. It will take forever to build up a similar ecosystem in Europe and I think most successful European entrepreneurs…

Microsoft will be storing EU users' data in the EU: https://blogs.microsoft.com/eupolicy/2021/05/06/eu-data-boun...

Will this enable them to comply with the requirements?

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

#505

Post by Kerrick »

gspencley wrote: post #322
AdriaanvRossum wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your concern. It's also an analytics service. But I believe we are very different [1]. We deliberately collect very little data [2]. There is a big difference between "a person's surfing data" or "surfing data of all visitors combined". That's what we promise with Simple Analytics. [1] https://blog.simpleanalytics.com/why-simple-analytics-is-a-g... [2] https://docs.simpleanalytics.com/what-we-collect

You're within your rights to create and offer whatever kind of service you want. As an end-user, however, any data what-so-ever sent to a 3rd party without my knowledge or consent is too much. There is no such thing as "the right amount." I'm OK with websites using self-hosted tools such as Matomo as long as the data never leaves their servers. Analytics is important to any business. But I choose to do business with…

> I'm looking at those "sign in with" widgets that run social media code in my browser

Arguably, they provide code that can be run in your browser, but your browser chooses to run it. And since your browser is a user agent, you choose to run the code by way of installing and configuring a browser that makes that choice by default.

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

#506

Post by germanier »

usr1106 wrote: post #495
germanier wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is in general not true and German government departments share data with different departments all the time without explicit consent of the affected citizen. This is also not a good example as there are additional legal restrictions for government departments which businesses don't need to obey.

If the sharing is not required by any law they have to ask. Sometimes they do. I'm sure there are cases where they share without either of the precondition met.

There are cases in which sharing without asking is legal without it being required by law.

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

#507

Post by martin_a »

jimmaswell wrote: post #499
martin_a wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you think if somebody told you this, after following you or your kids the entire day, while taking pictures and notes?

It would be weird, but sure, no difference. This is what a private investigator already does legally.

Do you think some laws might apply to private investigators and how they do that work?

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

#508

Post by jraph »

bsedlm wrote: post #455
jraph wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's not the privacy-first analytics tool neither. It's a tool. Matomo is the privacy-friendly analytics tool that comes to my mind anyway. (I have nothing to do with Matomo other than I used PhpMyVisites a few years ago. It had time to change its name twice since then)

there's a difference between a service and a tool. do not blur out this distinction. thanks.

That was not my point and I didn't want to make my message more complicated. This point has already clearly been made by my parent comment.

I agree with you though.

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

#509

Post by mediascreen »

brahadeesh wrote: post #491
ballenf wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we fragment and destroy the entire Internet I would call fragmenting these things rebuilding the internet. Not sure how consolidating everyone on a few Mailchimp type services is in anyone's interest.

Exactly. If this make European startups build their own ecosystem and provides me with an alternative for the services I use but don't track me, I'm going to switch - simple as. I see this as a win for the internet.

Why limit it to the EU? Shouldn't every country have their own AWS, Azure and Google Cloud?

I think we underestimate just how difficult it is just to replicate existing services, let alone keep up with the innovation.

It's like the Argentinian effort to stimulate its own computer manufacturing by banning Apple products.

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

#510

Post by sbarre »

eps wrote: post #466
sbarre wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only way to do analytics in a way that's respectful to the visitors' privacy is with an installable on-host software. That's it. This is an argument taken to a naive extreme. You can't expect every business to also be in the business of analytics, it's not realistic. There's a reason companies have business partners who specialize in certain services. It's why you have accountants, lawyers, marketers, etc.. Not…

You are missing the context. Privacy-respecting analytics should be self-hosted. No one's arguing against an average business using an analytics service, but that shouldn't be bundled with any "privacy" monickers. If Simple Analytics were pitched as "not a Google Analytics", this would've been perfectly fine. But they insist on the privacy angle and it just demonstrates they don't grok what tracking concerns are abou…

Oh no I get the context just fine. What you're missing is that "should be self-hosted" is outside the realm of the average business, and it's not realistic to put this as some arbitrary requirement to check the "privacy" box.

You're clearly a tech person so maybe it feels self-evident or easy for you to do that, just like taxes and law seem self-evident to accountants and lawyers, but the average business owner doesn't have time or money - or the skills - to figure all that out on their own, so they hire a service provider.

Do you think accountants and lawyers come to the business and work on their computers exclusively? No, they receive copies of the confidential business data and work on it within their own business environment.

And do you think accountants and lawyers don't include "privacy" in their pitch?

How is that different from analytics saying "we will keep any data you share with us private, and for your use only".

Based on your argument, as a business owner I should purchase and co-locate my own server, because even if I self-hosted my analytics, I'm storing that data on a third party server owned by my hosting provider!

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