Another blow to Google Analytics in Europe, the data protection authority of Italy has found that, a local use of web publisher of Google Analytics violating GDPR rules. As a result, the popular analytics tool has been declared illegal in Italy after being banned in Australia and France in 2022.
After identifying some complaints, the Italian SA started a complicated fact-finding process in close coordination with other data protection agencies in Europe. The Italian SA found that website owners using Google Analytics recorded visited pages, recorded user interactions and offered services through cookies.
The data collected had been the IP address, operating system, browser, screen resolution, language, date and time of page viewing, and this data was then sent to the United States. the Italian SA has determined that the processing had been unconstitutional since an IP address is personal data and will not be anonymised even if abbreviated, given the ability of Google to augment such data with the additional information.
It is important to note that, Google intends to retire Universal Analytics in the favour of Google Analytics 4 in 2023. Google Analytics 4 is a privacy-centric by design, becoming measurement solution of Google in a world where cookies are becoming obsolete, and privacy regulations are now becoming increasingly stringent. Although, it is not clear that, this new analytics tool will tick all the boxes needed for meeting the requirements of Europe.
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