CNIL - Google Analytics considered illegal in Europe, but there are alternative solutions

On February 10, 2022, the CNIL (Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés) has just posted an article announcing Google Analytics as potentially illegal in Europe due to the non-transparent transfer of user data to the United States.

The action carried out by the CNIL to give formal notice to several large European Internet sites, proves the will to make respect more strongly the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).

This action will have an important impact in the world of ecommerce and more particularly on the sphere Prestashop which natively includes all Google Analytics solutions.

Personally, I have been fighting for many years to avoid using the tools proposed by Google on the basis that the respect of personal data is never assured and that there is a strong opacity from Google on this subject.

How to do without Google analytics?

Solution native

To do without Google Analytics on Prestashop, the first solution that comes to mind is to be satisfied with the statistical data present in PrestaShop, taking care to have integrated correction of statistics for all versions before 1.7.8.0.

Personally, I use these data to follow the evolution of my turnover because I am part of those traders who work on the trends and not the raw figures, so I analyze the evolution compared to a previous period rather than the numerical data which does not represent much to mex.

Matomo

I discovered Matomo.org at the launch of the merchant support offer by the association Friends of Presta during the strict confinement of spring 2020 where we accompanied hundreds of merchants for the digitalization of their activity.

This solution has a strong advantage, since it allows you to self-host your analytics data and therefore be responsible for their protection and use.

This means that you can install the open-source script on your server and enjoy the quality data without sending it to anyone.

Despite this, the Cnil provides an explanatory document (french pdf) of the methods to be implemented on the configuration of the script in order to respect the European regulation on data protection.

The installation of the script can be done by following the official documentation of Matomo which is quite well done.

You can also do the installation with automated scripts like softaculous if your hosting company's management panel offers it.

Of course I can always accompany you on the implementation of this script, do not hesitate to make the request so that we can discuss it directly.

How to easily integrate Matomo with PrestaShop ?

In order to respect the instructions of the Cnil to the letter, one quickly realizes that one can only bring up the data of visits in Matomo, which seems very restrictive, but consistent with the protection of your customers.

That's why I have developed a very simple and affordable module to facilitate the integration of this information on PrestaShop: https://www.prestatoolbox.com/analytics-stats/444-follow-your-visitors-with-matomo.html

Conclusion

There are many alternatives to Google analytics such as Get Clicky for example, which attaches more importance to protecting your visitors' data, but these are still outsourced solutions that you do not completely control, which makes it difficult to guarantee 100% use of your customers' data.

The security of your customers' data is, in my opinion, one of the points you should study and respect the most. It is exactly in this spirit that I also propose a captcha module for PrestaShop independent of any external solution to ensure that no data is sent without control.

I can only advise you to switch quickly from Google Analytics to Matomo to avoid that the Cnil will soon be interested in your case.