Austria just decided that Google Analytics is illegal.

The EU waited long enough: now GDPR is putting its shoes on.

This day was always going to come of course, and now a precedent has been set.

In a landmark ruling by the Austrian Data Protection Authority (ADPA), the transfer of information from European data subjects to be stored and processed in the US by Google Analytics, constitutes a breach of several statutes in the EU’s privacy law, which was implemented 4 years ago in 2018.

Specifically, Google Analytics is understood to breach almost all of Chapter V of the GDPR legislation.

That’s kind of a big deal.

Why is Google Analytics *illegal*, though?

Why, when someone clicks and agrees for Google to to process their data? Isn’t it a user problem?

Nope.

The problem arises in just how personal that data is.

And it also arises in how murkily that data agreement is made.

Finally, the problem also arises in how easy it is to track someone directly through Google Analytics.

It doesn’t matter whether that ‘I agree’ box has been ticked.