The Data Protection authorities in Germany consider the use of demographic characteristics of web visitors in Google Analytics to be illegal.
Google Analytics is used to create "profiles" of users visiting specific web sites, not just by finding out how many and where they are, but also their “web” history. So the owner of a website or anyone interested in it can form a picture of visitors and their preferences. The German data protection services, however, both at the federal level and in various states, suggest that the use of Google Analytics is contrary to German law.
According to the newspaper Zeit, around 13% of German websites use the analytics service, among them pharmaceutical companies, political parties and media. Among other things, the legal problem is whether the IP address, the "personal signature" of each computer on the internet, is considered to be “sensitive personal data” or not. In other words, if a person can be identified just by their IP address. The German authorities consider that this is happening while Google has a different opinion, but it seems that German law is presented as ambiguous.
The German authorities fear that Google could create a "profile" of millions of internet users, which will include their interests, habits of life, consumer behaviour and political or even sexual preferences. Users, according to the report, are not able to actively choose to be excluded by this profiling process. The authorities are equally troubled by the fact that personal data can be processed by a company or institution based in a different country.
Google believes that the processing of data in the U.S. is completely covered by the agreement “Safe Harbour” between Europe and Washington, but considers it unnecessary to “opt-out” and users can turn off cookies instead.
