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Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

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Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#531

Post by scarface74 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #526
scarface74 wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, congressmen make $170K a year, the president makes around $400K a year. Junior developers at large tech companies can make $170K easily in year one or two. Senior developers at tech companies make $400K+. Is the government going to pay tech workers enough to compete?

It could. Or it can offer tens of millions of dollars for some software and see who bids. Especially when the previous provider would probably like to get more money selling something to the government, even if they have to make changes. The above poster was willing to pay "1% GDP" for the initial migration and for the US 200 billion dollars would pay for a lot of development work.

The companies bidding for the work would also be private industry. Wasn’t the entire idea to remove private industry from government?

Do you really think the government has the competence to create software? How many decades has the US government been trying to modernize the IRS? Do you remember the original ACA website rollout?

Not only do you have to hire developers, you have to hire project managers, retrain employers, etc.

Are you going to also create data centers to create what’s available in the public cloud? You need to make those redundant across regions, are you going to force open sourcing of control plane software?

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#532

Post by remram »

corywatilo wrote: post #18

Italy is the 4th in a string of recent decisions across the EU. (We're tracking these cases on isgoogleanalyticsillegal.com along with details for each.) Note that it's not illegal to use GA entirely, just illegal to use in its default state which transmits PII to the US.

I understand that this is primarily an advertisement for Posthog, but if you're going to keep posting it you might want to keep it up to date. There are only 4 countries on your map and one of them is:

> The Dutch Data Protection Authority warns that the use of Google Analytics 'may soon no longer be allowed', after a ruling by the Austrian privacy regulator. A definitive conclusion is said to come at the beginning of 2022.

At least you removed "the only open source product analytics platform" and the Google fonts since the last time a Posthog employee posted it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29994183

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#533

Post by trasz »

alexklarjr wrote: post #517
suction wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putin's disinformation really worked wonders on you.

My opinion is irrelevant, it is what Putin’s generals think. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/russia-ukraine-war/moscow-says-eu-n...

And? Even Russians don’t care about what their military believes in - see the hilariously low social status of soldiers within Russian society. Why would anyone else care? As a reminder, we are discussing whether EU is politically stable.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#534

Post by denton-scratch »

y42 wrote: post #429
m3adow wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you still have to provide a cookie banner as soon as your analytics are storing cookies, even if it's your own?

> Don't you still have to provide a cookie banner as soon as your analytics are storing cookies, even if it's your own? You need consent for every kind of storage usage on client side if you create profiles to analyze the them for marketing goals. If not, and no PII is being processed, no consent is required. Eg you could easily aggregate your server logs without a consent.

> if you create profiles to analyze the them for marketing goals.

That's not correct; if you collect PII, even if you don't use it, you need consent. Actually, if you don't have a legitimate use for the data, you are prohibited from collecting it at all.

GDPR isn't an assault on online marketing; it's about privacy.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#535

Post by denton-scratch »

cm2012 wrote: post #91

Another 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.

Perhaps those are start-ups that we don't need in the EU.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#536

Post by denton-scratch »

DisjointedHunt wrote: post #522
tgv wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may be looking at this through a very narrow, heavily politicized lens. First: GDPR is a compromise, so it's a bit uneven. That's partly due to lobbying by google and friends. Second, privacy very much needs protection. Even if you are perfectly fine giving up your privacy, other people aren't. Third: you can actually process user requests. Depending on how you do it, you don't even have to show a banner. Is that…

I mean, before accusing someone of looking at this politically, please read the comment fully. You’re taking pains to explain why GDPR is a compromise? Why? If it’s bad law, it’s bad law. Nothing you said invalidates the assertions I’ve made. Unless you’ve directly experienced the onerous system of regulations in places like Germany, I’d urge you to do more research before the armchair dismissal.

> If it’s bad law, it’s bad law.

Presumably it's your opinion that it's a bad law. The majority of Europeans think it's a good law - possibly the best regulation the EU has ever promulgated.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#537

Post by denton-scratch »

jakubp wrote: post #215
minsc_and_boo wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that for US- or Italian-based users? What if this is an Italian company running a global website with data from non-GDPR country users?

GDPR covers EU citizens. I don't think it says anything about non-EU citizens.

No, it covers companies and individuals operating within GDPR jurisdiction. A US company that trades in the EU is subject to the GDPR. This is no different from applying the UK Trades Descriptions Act to US companies that advertise in the UK.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#538

Post by denton-scratch »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #408
k1w1 wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think that's correct; and I suspect it was intentional.

I strongly disapprove of extraterritorial legislation (a US specialty). But in the case of the GDPR, if you want to regulate internet activity, then you more-or-less have to go extraterritorial.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#539

Post by denton-scratch »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #294
jakubp wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDPR covers EU citizens. I don't think it says anything about non-EU citizens.

Which is nebulous: someone whose grandad was Italian living their whole life in the US might be a defacto EU citizen.

No such thing as a de facto citizen; a de facto citizen is also known as a refugee.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#540

Post by hnbad »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #515
hnbad wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, as a EU company (based in Germany no less) I'm steering clear of any US SaaS whenever possible. Even if they operate in the EU they're usually a legal headache because privacy compliance is added as an afterthought and they'll often carelessly transfer data to US servers based on assumptions that should have been abandoned when Privacy Shield was torn down in the courts. Out of the big cloud providers only A…

Wait, why would Microsoft have a better reputation ? Because (NSA aside), they have been caught less often transferring private information and "stolen" company secrets to third parties ?

Google is an advertising company that is literally built on non-consensual data harvesting. AWS is an outgrowth of Amazon, which is likewise massively invested in data mining (though mostly on Amazon itself).

Microsoft's telemetry in end user products is known to tech savvy people but the company is mostly known for its operating system and office suite that most businesses already use. Additionally in Germany Microsoft used to offload its enterprise services to Deutsche Telekom (or T-Online I think) operating them for MS under the Microsoft brand, thus appearing even more trustworthy by effectively handing over control to a well-known German company. This changed but reputation sticks.

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