
Ask HN: Is using Google Analytics on your personal site compliant with GDPR? - ohduran
Hi everyone, I&#x27;m wondering if using GA on my site without using the now pervasive &quot;Cookie alert&quot; pop up could be prosecutable under GDPR.<p>I&#x27;ve search on the interwebs and the only thing I can find is legalese that I could not understand.<p>Can someone assist?
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ancymon
Some say as long as you anonymize user IP (call: ga('set', 'anonymizeIp',
true);), you can only mention GA usage in privacy policy.

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aqui_c
You have to take into account two different things. The ePrivacy directive and
the GDPR. The ePrivacy directive is what generated the cookie popup you
mentioned, while GDPR is tackling what happens with personal data once it is
on someone's server.

You can check this article:
[https://gdpr.eu/cookies/](https://gdpr.eu/cookies/)

But it basically states that you should give your users the possibility of
opting-out from tracking cookies, like the ones used by Google, and this is
not GDPR, this is ePrivacy. To comply with GDPR, you should give your users
the possibility to see their data, delete the data, etc. Since this is done by
Google, it is their responsibility to comply with GDPR, and not yours (more or
less... Let's say, it is YOUR responsibility, but you offloaded it to Google,
which is compliant with GDPR apparently).

In any case, you should ask yourself why are you giving Google your users'
data. Aren't your server logs enough to see who visits you?

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verdverm
Have you used Google analytics / tag manager? There's a lot more than who came
here from where that logs could provide. And without rebuilding the connecting
different requests to the same session

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aqui_c
I know it is powerful, the questions is whether the OP is actually using them,
or just server logs are enough. For a personal website, sometimes there's no
need for too much info.

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acallaghan
GDPR is only a problem if you take personal data off of your users - if you
don't, then it's no issue

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Tomte
IP address for example.

