Will Germany Government Ban Google Analytics?

Since the inception of Search Engine technology there has been a significant demand for Webmasters learning as much as they can about the visitors coming to their web sites. From a strictly business point of view, this makes perfect sense. You want to know as much as you can about your potential customers to better serve them. But the more a business knows about those potential and existing customers and their search habits, the greater the concern regarding possible violations of the privacy rights of those customers.

Germany Considers Ban

Google Analytics is universally recognized as the greatest set of tools available for Webmasters to dig into the demographics of their visitors. They launched a free version in 2006 and its slick dashboards and appealing statistical summaries and charts are studied by web marketers the world over. Although privacy concerns have been voiced in many countries the German government appears to be the first to actually consider banning Google analytics, even though approximately thirteen percent of German web site businesses use them.

While the data is collected "anonymously" it is possible that search information could lead to tracking an individual's movements on banking and financial sites where no search terms are entered. Critics maintain that an IP address is not anonymous. Proponents of Google Analytics claim privacy concerns are over dramatized but Google's unwillingness to spell out exactly how they collect, store, and use personal information fuels the debate. One of the principal concerns of German officials is that Google can store profiles of German Internet users on web site servers within the United States. Apparently this is already illegal under existing German privacy laws.

Implications for the Entire Globe

The implications for the rest of the world should be clear. In the early winter of 2009, CNBC - one of the most respected and followed sources of business information in the world - aired a special presentation on individual privacy and Google's use of personal information to serve their own business purposes. One of the major concerns is that many Internet users are unaware information about their surfing habits and other personal information is being collected. While marketers have sought to collect as much information about existing and potential customers since commerce began, in the past most private information was provided voluntarily.

Right now the legal battle in Germany is over the storing of individual IP addresses but that is a concern throughout the entire European Union and a German ban might impact the use of Google Analytics and other data gathering tools like it in other European Union countries as well. Could the United States be far behind? Maybe not, but if you are have a web site and you are using Google Analytics you would be well advised to take extra steps to ensure visitors to your site they have nothing to worry about when it comes to their privacy rights.