EU Data Privacy Safeguards Put eCommerce Companies at Risk

Danish authorities joined several other EU countries to affirm that Google Analytics cannot be used lawfully without data protection safeguards. This puts American businesses that sell to European customers at risk of GDPR fines. Mikel Lindsaar, CEO and Founder of StoreConnect, has an affordable solution that lets businesses own their own data while being GDPR compliant.

Google is the unchallenged leader of search engine traffic. Its free analytics tool, Google Analytics, automatically collects user data, including browser information, pages visited, operating system, user location, preferred language, and the user device’s IP address.(1) While this data can be a powerful asset for eCommerce companies, it does not meet the EU’s data collection standards. Italy, France, Austria, and now Denmark agree that Google Analytics violates GDPR privacy policies by passing user data back to the United States without adequate safeguards.(2) This puts American eCommerce companies in jeopardy of either not being able to operate in the EU or facing GDPR fines. Fortunately, Mikel Lindsaar, an Australian entrepreneur, has partnered with the world’s #1 CRM platform to create StoreConnect. Small to mid-sized businesses can use eCommerce integration to seamlessly and lawfully operate in Europe.

Included in the EU privacy debate were concerns that companies cannot comply with the GDPR by simply turning off Google Analytics cookies. It and similar services can still retrieve and record personal data through HTTP parameters or fingerprinting of a device or browser.(3) To comply with the GDPR, businesses need a technical understanding of what data is being collected, where it is going, who receives it, and how the data is protected.

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For millions of businesses that rely on Google Analytics, these EU rulings pose a serious problem. U.S. companies cannot operate in Europe without complying. However, if they try to set up servers in Europe and store data there, they are in conflict with the U.S. CLOUD act. American companies are required to provide U.S. authorities with any requested data on their servers, but this would be prohibited for any data stored in Europe.

Fortunately, with the evolution of eCommerce into eCommerce 3.0, integrated solutions like StoreConnect provide eCommerce sales integration and channel consolidation. In addition to providing a single access point for a company’s websites, content management systems, marketing platforms, and product management, it guards valuable customer data.

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StoreConnect maintains customer data within a business’ own systems. This allows small to mid-size companies to continue to benefit from analytics while remaining GDPR compliant.

“With StoreConnect, small and mid-size companies CAN own their data,” explains Mikel Lindsaar, StoreConnect CEO. “Equally important, businesses using StoreConnect still have the information that enables them to understand what their customers are doing in their store while being GDPR compliant.”