The company has settled a privacy dispute over Analytics with German regulators

Sep 15, 2011 13:51 GMT  ·  By

Google has settled its dispute with German data privacy regulators concerning Analytics. The privacy watchdogs were worried that Analytics tracked user activity without explicit consent or even notification.

German data privacy regulator Johannes Caspar announced that Google has agreed to some of the conditions and will begin enforcing them immediately.

Google has also revealed the successful end of the talks, which started in 2009, and has issued a number of policy changes and recommendations to German websites to ensure that their use of the Analytics tool is in line with the German law.

Google has agreed to expand the availability of its Analytics opt-out extension. Google has been offering a browser extension, for Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer, which protects users from having their visits tracked by Google Analytics.

The add-on has been available for more than a year, but Google has now released a version for both Safari and Opera, covering all major browsers.

What's more, regulators are pushing for a similar add-on to be available for smartphone browsers as well, to protect users regardless of what device they're using.

Google is also making it possible for websites to send truncated IP data, which leaves out the last portion of an IP address. This data is still useful in determining a general location of the user, but it's not enough to uniquely identify the computer used. This option is available across Europe.

The company is also asking websites to reveal in their terms of service that they use Google Analytics. It also asks websites to point to the Analytics blocking add-on.

Finally, Google has to enter into a data-administration contract with any German website that uses Analytics. All of these measures are required for a German website to operate inside local law.