In accordance with international privacy laws, Google generally requires you to have a legally compliant privacy policy in place if you use Google products. This condition is usually included in the terms that you agree to when you sign up to use their services.
In regards to Google Analytics, in particular, Google states in their Terms of Service under section “7. Privacy“:
You will have and abide by an appropriate Privacy Policy and will comply with all applicable laws, policies, and regulations relating to the collection of information from Visitors. You must post a Privacy Policy and that Privacy Policy must provide notice of Your use of cookies that are used to collect data. You must disclose the use of Google Analytics, and how it collects and processes data. . . . You will use commercially reasonable efforts to ensure that a Visitor is provided with clear and comprehensive information about, and consents to, the storing and accessing of cookies or other information on the Visitor’s device where such activity occurs in connection with the Service and where providing such information and obtaining such consent is required by law.
Google repeatedly references “applicable law” throughout their terms as many of these privacy-related stipulations are related to actual legal requirements. Google is bound to many of the same privacy laws that you are and as such, their terms reflect this.
Let’s assume you have a website, you run Google Analytics on it and you want to ensure that you comply with Google’s terms (and the law). What do you have to do?
Generally, the national/regional laws of your base of operations will apply, as well as (in many cases), the laws governing the regions in which your users are based. This can be quite tricky online, as, unless you’re actively blocking some regions, you may need to address requirements across geographical boundaries and legal jurisdictions. For this reason, it’s always the best idea to handle these activities with the strictest applicable regulations in mind (which currently, is likely European Law, mostly the GDPR and Cookie Law).
You can read more about determining your law of reference here or read our in-depth Legal Overview Guide here.
Google Analytics Advertising features allow you to enable features in Analytics that aren’t available through standard implementations. Advertising features include:
For more information read Remarketing with Analytics and User-ID and Cross Device on Analytics Help.
In Google’s words:
If you use an SDK to implement any Google Analytics Advertising Features, such as Audience Reporting or Remarketing, you must comply with the Policy for Google Analytics Advertising Features, in addition to the Google Play Developer Program Policies, and any other applicable policy.
This requires slight modifications/additions to your privacy policy which is outlined in our guide How to update your Privacy Policy to reflect enhanced advertising features in Google Analytics.
Let’s start with the minimum legal requirements for a privacy policy. These are the most basic elements that a privacy policy should have:
Here’s where our Privacy and Cookie Policy Generator comes in very handy: with 1700 + available clauses, our privacy policies contain all elements commonly required across many regions and services, while applying the strictest standards by default – giving you the option to fully customize as needed.
The cookie policy is a section of the privacy policy dedicated to cookies. It details all legally required information including the categories of cookies used, their purposes, names the third parties who install or may install cookies through the website and provides links to said third parties’ respective privacy policy and possible consent forms. The Generator features a one-click set-up for the cookie policy which then automatically pulls all the relevant cookie information from the services indicated in your privacy policy.
All our policies are created by lawyers, monitored by our lawyers and hosted on our servers to ensure that they are always up-to-date with the latest legal changes and third-party requirements.
The generation process is easy and intuitive:
Read the guide on How to Generate a Privacy Policy here.
As mentioned above, there are two sets of specifications to be met — those of Google and those of the Cookie Law. Luckily, these two intersect and requirements for both are easily met by our comprehensive Cookie Solution.
Our Cookie Solution allows you to:
To help advertisers manage cookies for analytics and advertising purposes, Google has introduced Consent Mode, a feature that allows you to avoid prior blocking for Google Analytics and Google Ads (including Google Ads Conversion Tracking and Remarketing).
You can collect consent via multiple mechanisms including continued browsing, scrolling, and/ or specific clicking actions. Keep in mind though that allowed consenting actions may differ depending on the Member State law.
The process is straightforward:
After creating your account simply go to your website area:
It’s easy to run, fast and does not require heavy investments. For more information on our Cookie Solution click here.
