Yes, you read that right. As of recently, several European privacy authorities, including the Danish DPA (Datatilsynet), French DPA (CNIL), Italian DPA (the Garante), and Austrian DPA (DSB), have discovered that using Google Analytics may result in the unauthorized transfer of data outside of Europe because it does not adhere to the protections outlined in the EU Regulation.
Due to recent GDPR rulings Google Analytics users are now facing criticism for transmitting personal data outside of the EU. Using Google Analytics may now be prohibited if your nation is one of those that abides by the GDPR.
What do I need to know?
The authorities have made decisions about using Google Analytics and claim that technological compliance measures offered by Google Analytics 3 have been deemed insufficient.
Investigations have shown that businesses using Google Analytics gather information about how visitors interact with those websites, including the particular pages visited and the services used, through cookies.
Several pieces of information are gathered, including the IP address of the user’s device, information about the browser, operating system, screen resolution, chosen language, and the date and time of website visitors.
Where do we go from here?
It is up to each organization to choose what course of action to pursue because it is still challenging to predict the impact of the decision of Google Analytics. Strategic Results encourages businesses to protect themselves For the time being by considering the following;
- Move to a non-US analytics provider, or if you decide to stick with Google Analytics, you should update to Google Analytics 4 and add more measures using the accessible settings
- If you choose to continue using Google Analytics, you can get closer to compliance by utilizing Google’s wide array of privacy options. These options range from limiting advertising features to completely deactivating data collection.
Google Analytics Alternatives
Considering this is a developing case and there is no direct answer on the right way to approach it, you may want to consider using these Google Analytics alternatives.
- GoAccess
- PostHog
- Matomo
- Visitor Analytics
- Pirsch Analytics
- Countly
- Plausible
- Fathom
Our Strategic Results team will do our best to keep you updated on the matter so you’ll know the best next steps to take!