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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

#621

Post by tempnow987 »

parasense wrote: post #614
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…

> It will take forever to build up a similar ecosystem in Europe And even then it seems risky the EU will deem the business model entirely in violation of privacy laws. It's very chilling When the EU finally completes their utopian/dystopian ideas of privacy from foreign Internet services, the great firewall of Europe, perhaps then EU regulators will look inward and do the same things? But for now it all has the appe…

What's funny is I don't think of the EU was that high on the privacy list? Doesn't govt slurp up data on its citizens in terms of national health care systems, databases on identity, easy access to online records etc? Is there even a trial by jury in the EU? I thought they had a type of prosecutor / judge that could go rooting around anywhere they want pretty much unchecked.

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

#622

Post by rvense »

keewee7 wrote: post #521
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…

The activist MEPs in the EU who have pushed for these regulations are overwhelmingly (German) socialists. I support their work to protect the privacy of EU citizens. But I'm also aware that their goal is to replace Microsoft, Google, Facebook etc. with state-owned European enterprises. European state enterprises can be surprisingly efficient. However keep the Germans out of it. German government IT is still in the Mi…

Danish governmental IT has more than its fair share of scandals.

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

#623

Post by CWuestefeld »

bluecalm wrote: post #547
CWuestefeld wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your claim that they can't share a customer's address with a shipping customer, and thus must actually perform all shipping themselves?

GDPR has an exception for things that are necessary for the service the customer asked for. If you ordered something to be shipped to your home then the provider can share your address with the shipping company - that's required to fulfill their end of the deal. Sending your personal information to some 3rd party advertising company? Not so much.

If the seller can subcontract the delivery service, is there any reason they can't subcontract their accounts receivable?

I think the element you're missing is - of course this is OK, it happens all the time. What the comment you were responding to before wasn't making clear is that when it's done, there must be contractual provisions limiting the service provider's use of the data, so they can't use it for their own purposes.

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

#624

Post by foxfluff »

chaostheory wrote: post #525
mediascreen wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I already get a lot of "We are sorry, but for legal reasons we are prevented from providing this service where you live" when I'm accessing American websites. Recent European judgements seems to make it illegal to embed content from YouTube or Vimeo for example. I don't see how dividing services up by region will help me anyway. I'd rather be able to choose from a few (I imagine there are more than a few at the momen…

I feel that the whole point of this is to mimic China’s achievement of driving out foreign competition through legislation. It’s similar to the UK’s pornography laws being more about surveillance and censorship rather than protecting children.

If you flip the scenario around in your mind.. how would you feel if virtually every site or service you visit scoops up your data and sends it to [China|Russia|...] and hosts all your private data on servers operated by the [Chinese|Russians|...] and are subject to [Chinese|Russian|...] rule and disregard whatever laws your country has enacted? How would you feel if you couldn't opt out without virtually opting out of the entire internet, including all the services your friends and family and local associations & companies use for messaging?

That's how the internet has been. That's how I feel about US tech giants getting all my data. They write their privacy policy, they dictate their terms, they follow US laws. I have absolutely no choice or voice or vote, unless one considers "yo dawg just build your own internet" a realistic choice.

I don't feel like the purpose is to drive out foreign competition. I feel like the purpose is to enforce privacy as a right, and I fully support it. I also fully support the right to transmit data across borders as long as the destination country also respects my privacy and rights instead of treating me as an alien and potential terrorist. Is that too much to ask for?

And in general, is following the rules of the country you offer a service in too much to ask for? Local laws apply to brick and mortar business; if Walmart wants to come to my neighborhood, sure go ahead, but please respect our laws. I don't see why internet companies should be above the law either.

GDPR is replacing rules dictated by US corporations with democratically established rules written by our representatives. It's unfortunate that there's now a clash between US laws and EU laws, but it's not the end of the world.

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

#625

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

wongarsu wrote: post #534
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…

> like AWS, Azure, Mailchimp, PayPal etc [...] No cloud services, no Office 365 or Google Workspace. Maybe an unpopular opinion, but imho AWS, GCP and Azure are popular with startups because of their generous free credits, not because they are good tools for startups. As a startup you are typically better served by a DigitalOcean-level of complexity, and there are plenty of such offers in the EU (Hetzner Cloud, Grids…

All Office docs contain a GUID that's closer to PII than an IP address.

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

#626

Post by lazyeye »

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…

I think we are already dealing with the "bizarre consequences" of having our personal information uploaded to servers in a foreign country without consent.

Privacy abuse on such a massive scale, never before seen in human history, requires action.

And it does not matter how normalised this has become for the people in the valley of the clueless.

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

#627

Post by seanhunter »

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…

This is entirely untrue. AWS and Azure are most definitely able to offer GDPR-compliant in-region hosting options and I'm sure GCP can to (I just don't know their offering as well).

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

#628

Post by ATsch »

mediascreen wrote: post #509
brahadeesh wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

That is completely unrelated though. The only thing this ruling confirms is that you can not process data of EU residents when you can not be adequately protect them due to local laws i.e. the CLOUD act. If your laws allow you to keep the data safe, you can offer your cloud services to the EU market as much as you want. If they wanted to, the US could easily allow companies to guarantee those protections too.

I would not be surprised when, if no solution is found, some of the major cloud providers in the EU end up being e.g. japanese, israeli or canadian.

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

#629

Post by kroolik »

brianwawok wrote: post #599
wongarsu wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> like AWS, Azure, Mailchimp, PayPal etc [...] No cloud services, no Office 365 or Google Workspace. Maybe an unpopular opinion, but imho AWS, GCP and Azure are popular with startups because of their generous free credits, not because they are good tools for startups. As a startup you are typically better served by a DigitalOcean-level of complexity, and there are plenty of such offers in the EU (Hetzner Cloud, Grids…

> As a startup you are typically better served by a DigitalOcean-level of complexity, and there are plenty of such offers in the EU (Hetzner Cloud, Gridscale, OVH, etc) As an actual startup founder who started as a 1 man startup, strongly disagree. Spent maybe $200 a month on Google Cloud, got an actual production ready cluster. Scaled up to Millions in revenue, never had to deal with any Linux Server admin BS. More…

Just make sure your BCP plan includes other provides. HN is full of stories where peoples' accounts are blocked with no reason and without means of effective contact.

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

#630

Post by belorn »

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…

If European startups end up starting companies in the US, and the US companies can't operate in EU, there will either be a massive vacuum to serve the European market ($15 trillion in estimated GDP), or there will be companies that like profits and want to earn some money by providing products in EU.

We can create a middle ground. When ever information about a EU citizen that get transferred to the US, a similar information about a US citizen get transferred to the EU as hostage in case there is a data violation. A list of IP-addresses accessing usa.gov in return for a list of IP-addresses that accessed europa.eu. Surely a deal can be made that give both sides equal power.

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