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Google Analytics May Be Illegal In Germany

Posted by kdawson on from the schmafe-harbor dept.

sopssa sends in a TechCrunch story that begins "Several federal and regional government officials in Germany are trying to put a ban on Google Analytics, the search giant's free software product that allows website owners and publishers to get detailed statistics about the number, whereabouts, and search behavior of their visitors (and much more)." Here's Google's translation of the article from Zeit Online (original in German). A German lawyer cited there says that penalties for websites that uses Google Analytics could amount to €50,000 (about $75,000). Reader sopssa adds, "The amount of data Google collects from everywhere on the Internet is indeed huge, and website owners should be using a local open source alternative to keep visitor data private."

12 of 241 comments (clear)

  1. Schadenfreude by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Everything is illegal in Germany.

    1. Re:Schadenfreude by mrwolf007 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Everything is illegal in Germany.

      Bullshit. Only if its usefull for anything.
      Otherwise the chances of it being illegal are merely high.

    2. Re:Schadenfreude by atheistmonk · · Score: 2, Funny

      How else do you think Inspector Rex would stay on the job?

    3. Re:Schadenfreude by introspekt.i · · Score: 2, Funny

      You're not as far off the deutchmark as you think.

      There, fixed that for you.

    4. Re:Schadenfreude by davester666 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Sssh. You're not supposed to mention 'H'. And whatever you do, don't talk about the war.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    5. Re:Schadenfreude by mister_playboy · · Score: 3, Funny

      What does Mongolia have to do with this story?

      --
      Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law ::: Love is the law, love under will
    6. Re:Schadenfreude by Carewolf · · Score: 2, Funny

      i would feel much more threatened by the police and other security in the USA, carrying nasty stuff like teasers and so.

      Hey, don't tease me bro!

  2. Open source? by DriedClexler · · Score: 3, Funny

    "Do, we didn't illegally disclose your data; we open-sourced it!"

    --
    Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
  3. Re:Ridiculous. by nurb432 · · Score: 2, Funny

    You don't have that right if the laws don't give it to you. Don't like the laws, move elsewhere.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  4. Hell froze over. by SharpFang · · Score: 2, Funny

    Government wants to ban a proprietary tool serving obtaining vast amounts of data about the net users by a big corporation, without the users' content. The government suggests an open-source alternative.

    Slashdot crowd violently opposes.

    brb checking if RMS applied for a job at Microsoft.

    --
    45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    1. Re:Hell froze over. by Kalriath · · Score: 2, Funny

      Said big corporation is Google. Google can't do wrong, you know?

      --
      For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
  5. Re:Ridiculous. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    If you run that website in Germany, it is illegal for you to save customers' personal data longer than X days.

    Germany is using Roman numerals again?