Google Analytics May Be Illegal In Germany

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."

Comments

Ridiculous.

[MikeFM]

If you come to my website then I, or my designated party, have the right to record the fact that you came to my website. If you don't like it then don't use the web. Is it also against the law to record what customers come in the door of your brick and mortar store in Germany?

Re:Ridiculous.

[darthwader]

It's not quite as cut-and-dry as you think.

It could very well be illegal to follow you around the store and record every product you looked at, and then follow you around the library and see every book you look at (and then examine the records to see what you have ever checked out), then followed you to the video store and measured exactly how much time you spent looking at each title (and also examine your rental history).

The Germans lived through both the Nazis and with the KGB. They have a good reason to be sensitive about protecting people's privacy.

Complete nonsense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Sir or Madam,
this is acutally complete nonsense.
If you choose to publish, you have no right whatsoever to track who is reading your publication for what reason.

Re:Schadenfreude

[rrohbeck]

Except saying bad words on TV or being naked in public :)

Re:Schadenfreude

[kju]

Sorry, disregard my other posting, something went wrong.

I've said it once and I'll say it again: Germany is not a free country.

I'm german and i actually feel that i'm in a very free country, thank you very much. Yes, there are some laws which i disagree with, but overall it is fine.

and then you can't say anything about Nazis or face jail time or some other severe penalty

Complete bullshit. You can say a lot about nazis and the nazi era. You can discuss this, and you are even free to utter dumb sentences like "not everything was bad in nazi germany" (which is technically spoken true, but a dumb statement nethertheless as a german tv personality badly learned a while a ago).

You are only banned from showing symbols like the swastika, play/sing some songs like the "Horst Wessel Lied" (horst wessel song, hymn of the nazi party), deny the holocaust or praise the unlawful nazi regime. But even doing this will most of the time not lead you into jail. A fine will do in most cases.

Now you might argue that this is against freedom of speech, but as a german i feel that given our history there is very good reason to ban said things, especially denying the holocaust. Our ancestors have done enough harm to e.g. jews, there is no need to further harm them by allowing to state that the horror they (the few who were not killed) encountered actually never happened.

I could go on on but in short I put Germany up there with China, not quiet as bad

Yes, you could go on with bullshit claims, but this still puts germany nowhere near china. Not quite as bad? That is the understatement of the year.

but still the fact that free speech is merely an illusion

Still the fact is that free speech is actually provided in germany. But most of us germans (and europeans in general) have a different feeling of the meaning of free speech. Free speech is fine, but the right to it ends where others are harmed. I don't have a problem with that, and most people i know don't have either. This concept might be hard to grasp for a citizen of the United States, but i'm still fine with it and i don't feel that i'm missing some of the banned speech.

there makes me feel that Germany has a ways to go in terms of personal liberties when compared to several other democratic countries in the western world.

I take it that you are from the US. People like you also have a long way to go until you will finally understand that the us american believes are not the holy grail to which the whole world needs to subscribe.