Changes to privacy laws (especially in the EU) mean that a number of services have created ways to meet the data retention policies. Google Analytics will enforce theirs on May 28th – make sure you act or you will loose data.
You should be aware of privacy policies that affect your business, and if you are connected to business or customers in the EU then this is important.
Even if you don’t deal with folks in the EU you will need to do some housekeeping. Our research shows that most Google Analytics accounts will automatically start deleting data older than 26 months if you do not manually change your accounts yourself. This means that as of today you cannot then do a month of year comparison for Events in GA for more than 2 years.
So what’s the change in the EU all about? The rule, called General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR, focuses on ensuring that users know, understand, and consent to the data collected about them. It’s no longer enough to simply put something in the fine print and have the customer tick a box. This article from Wired gives a good run down about the wide ranging impacts.
Seek some legal advice if you believe your business could be impacted.
Watch this video to find out how to update your Data Retention policy in Google Analytics – before you loose data that you are allowed to keep.
- Login to analytics.google.com
- Click the admin icon in the bottom left
- In the middle column ‘Property’ click Tracking Info then Data Retention
- Make your selection around time period here
- Click save
- Update your Terms & Conditions and update your users.