Let’s look at the steps you need to consider to get your Google Analytics account and website ready for GDPR compliance. We'll also talk about how to decide if you need a cookie consent popup. And you can download our Google Analytics GDPR compliance Resources [GDRP segments and cookie consent decision map]. Read Full Post - goo.gl/KjALJ4 Join our Free Google Analytics training - goo.gl/ziM77J Discussing GDPR related changes in Google Analytics has raised a lot of new questions. Questions like: What impact does retaining user data have on GDPR compliance? How long can I retain my user data and still be GDPR complaint? How do I know if I should be using a cookie consent notification? And how do implement that notification? Today, I will attempt to answer these questions to the best of my ability, and the best of my knowledge given what I know about GDPR right now. GDPR Compliance Resources To help further our understanding of how to make our websites GDPR compliant, I’ve created some additional resources. One of these resources is a tracking consent flowchart. This flowchart will help you think about when, and if, you need to be using a cookie consent pop-up. I also built a Google Analytics segment. You can grab our link to my GDPR segment and use it in your Google Analytics account. This segment will show how much of your website traffic is potentially affected by GDPR. And, I’m sharing my current go-to steps for GDPR compliance. Of course, this strategy is subject to change as we learn more about GDPR, but for now, I have bulleted out my upcoming plans for making Jeffalytics GDPR complaint. You can download all these resources in our post - Legal Disclaimer Before we start answering our GDPR compliance questions, please note: Warning: I am not an attorney. This video and post do not offer or represent legal advice. You should work with your own legal counsel for any GDPR related policies and actions you take. Can you be GDPR compliant and retain user data? Can you be GDPR complaint and still retain your user data longer than 26 months? This question came up many times over the past week. Many readers, YouTube subscribers, and Twitter users asked a similar question. GDPR compliance questions And I believe the answer is yes. You can use the data retention setting “Do not atomically expire” and still comply with GDPR… If you do two things: 1. You need to allow users to delete their data easily Google Analytics is adding a new user deletion tool. This tool isn’t available yet. But once it’s released, you need to hook it up to your site and allow users the option to delete their data. Now, you might be wondering how to implement user deletion. As I mentioned, the user deletion tool is not in place yet. When Google releases this tool, we’ll do a tutorial on the user deletion process. 2. Storage of user data is for historical research If you look at the GDPR data collection policy, you’ll notice that data storage is allowed for scientific and historical research. So the question becomes, is web analytics historical research? And the answer is Yes! Analytics is definitely historical research. If you’ve taken my Analytics Course, you know one of the first things I teach is: “We use analytics data to learn from the past so that we can make future improvements to our marketing efforts and our customer’s online experience.” If we couldn’t analyze website data from three or more years ago, the Internet would be a worse-off place. And not having historical data would significantly limit the scope of our research. So, retaining user data is necessary for historical research (analytics). If you want to retain your user data make sure you: Adjust your data retention setting to “Do not automatically expire.” Set up your user deletion process as soon as the tool becomes available. And use your data for historical research purposes. With our data retention question answered, let’s talk about tracking consent, AKA cookie consent popups. Cookie consent popups and GDPR compliance If you visit Brian Clifton’s website, you’ll see the popup featured in our video. Brian is a foremost authority on web analytics and a former head of web analytics at Google. This popup provides a great example of how one of the leading experts is obtaining tracking consent. brianclifton.com: goo.gl/zZbjHq Brian wrote an excellent article on GDPR and tracking consent that I would encourage you to read. But I also wanted to break down my interpretation of when you need to use a tracking consent popup, specifically for your Google Analytics data. So let’s look at cookie consent notifications as they relate to Google Analytics data and GDPR compliance. Read Full Post - goo.gl/KjALJ4 Join our Free Google Analytics training - goo.gl/ziM77J

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