After Being Declared Illegal In Austria And France, Google Analytics Was Banned In Italy  

Specifically,  Google Analytics is now being banned in some European countries due to infringing European Union (EU) GDPR privacy laws. Google Analytics G4 is a new update that was supposed to be a huge step forward for digital marketing, but it’s hitting some snags.

Where Has  Google Analytics Been Banned?

 Google Analytics has already been banned in Austria, France and Italy due to going against their privacy regulations.

It was claimed that Google had dealt with these concerns with G4, the new version of Google Analytics, which would be allowable under EU and individual national law, but that appears not to be the case, at least not yet. (Source: ICIR).

In the crosshairs of EU market regulators, Google has now lost thousands of large users that were using  Google Analytics. This is a big blow for them and will probably greatly impact EU users of G4 as well.

Google Analytics is one of the world’s leading tools dedicated to developers who collect traffic statistics on websites and seek to generate and increase revenue through digital marketing. (Source: Google).

Why Exactly Was Google Analytics Banned?

The Italian supervisory body said it reached the decision to ban  Google Analytics after a “complex investigative exercise” initiated together with other EU data protection authorities.

According to the Italian government, the decision was made to protect privacy. They said  Google Analytics still collected private information from users, including IP address and location.

The data was then indirectly available to Google’s servers in the United States, which means that US intelligence could access this data without any protection guarantee for the users. This posed a risk to users’ privacy on the web and contravenes Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws.

The GDPR laws are designed to prevent companies from storing personal information without a user’s explicit consent.

What Comes Next?

Countries are gradually sticking to this new reality under the GDPR, and the most recent episode is the ban on  Google Analytics in Italy.

The situation is this: digital marketers will need to branch out and become more creative due to these new restrictions.

Finally, speaking of cookies, the expectation is that the company will replace this tracking method with a solution that is less invasive, but that could still face objections from EU regulators.