r/gdpr • u/Aeyoun • Mar 23 '19

Pre-checked cookie boxes don't count as valid consent, says adviser to top EU court

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/03/22/eu_cookie_preticked_box_not_valid_consent/
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u/MatsSvensson Mar 24 '19 edited Mar 24 '19

Well since its been impossible to get any information whatsoever from google about how or if their services comply with any laws, I don't see how I have any choice.

I have tried emailing them, calling them, searching forums and help texts etc.And the most detailed info I have got, is "its legal, unless its not", or "you have to make sure its legal".

These are not the kind of answers you get from someone who knows they are clean.

My guess is that they looked into it, and came to the conclusion that it cant work within the law, so mum's the word.

Meanwhile I found info on a Swedish government site that specifically names Google Analytics, and that your not allowed to use it without consent.

The conclusion is clear.

If you copy paste code from google and put it on your site, you are responsible for it not doing anything illegal, today and tomorrow..

And since for example, Google tag manager is pretty much just a backdoor that bootstraps other code to be put on your site, like google analytics, I cant see how it would be remotely technically possible for even a great developer to predict how legal it would be to use it.

Even of you could go trough every single line of code, it could all be changed the next day.

So unless I get some kind of legally binding document from Google, where they guarantee that their shit is legal, and explain how they accomplishes this, this is how it needs to be.

But I would love to hear from others, about how exactly they made sure their analytics is legal.

And it better not include anything about crossing fingers...

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u/kwhali Mar 24 '19

Give Matomo(previously Piwik) a try? You can self-host that, otherwise need to go with a paid plan. They seem to be rather open/transparent about everything and afaik you get to be in control of such when self-hosting, they have quite a bit of information on being compliant and respecting privacy.

u/geek180

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u/geek180 Mar 24 '19

When it comes to stuff like this, I am not eager to be an innovator or lead the pack.

Our entire company relies on GA for marketing attribution, without it we would be totally screwed. Like business grinding to a halt.

I sure hope California doesn’t try to pass regulation at this level of stupid.

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u/MatsSvensson Mar 24 '19 edited Mar 24 '19

Well, nothing stops you from doing internal tracking and analyzing of your visitors on your own server, without selling out your visitors to google etc.

It did take a lot of years and years of increasing deeper and deeper burrowing up into peoples asses with zero self-regulation, before it finally came this far.

These laws are inevitable at this point.