Search Marketing News

German authorities 'consider legality of Google Analytics'

November 26th 2009

In a move that would affect search marketing experts, German officials are investigating whether Google Analytics is illegal.

Data protection authorities are considering whether the web traffic measurement system infringes privacy laws.

The free service gathers, stores and collates information on website visitors, letting owners see how many unique visits their site has had, what pages were the most popular and how long people browsed for.

However, because it uses unique identifiers of site visitors it could breach privacy rights unless their permission is obtained.

Under Google terms and conditions, it states that the data will not be connected to other information on the internet user and that all websites that use Google Analytics update their privacy policy to disclose this fact.

"We are completely confident that Google Analytics complies with European data protection law," said a Google spokeswoman.

The service does not collect any personal information, she added.

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