Ankit /marketing/ (@Growthfyi) on X

So major reasons it being non-compliant is that: 1. It collects and sends data to US directly and had failed to prove if the data won't be accessed by US Govt. 2. It's set's third-party cookies, which allows Google to do cross domain tracking – this is used to show you ads. /2

Technically, you just need to fix these 2 issues to make GA4 GDPR-compliant Here's what the founder of Jack – Founder of Fathom Analytics (GA alternative) has to say about it. Source added: x.com/JackEllis/stat… /3

Replying to @OndrejMirtes and @PierreDeWulf

Sure, you can make GA4 legal. 1) Don't load the GA JS file from Google's servers 2) Set up an EU proxy that removes IP, User Agent, etc. before it hits GA4 Most website owners aren't doing this, so my messaging is always geared towards the majority. I take your point though.

So, indeed we can fix this and here's what I came up with. I built a data layer over Google Analytics which allows you to serve GA script from a custom domain and stopping Google from cross domain tracking. You'll move from 3rd Party to 1st Party cookie as well. /4

In addition to these, you should do a few more stuff in the GA4 settings to make more aligned with GDPR. 1. Accept DPA's from Google 2. Reference in the data protection regulations to a possible data transfer to third countries /6

3. Obtain user consent 4. Disable granular location and device data collection 5. Disable Data Sharing Settings /7

That's all on how you can make GA4 GDPR-compliant, but if you want to read a bit more about it and current situation, then stick around and keep scrolling. /8

So, you might just ask why do we really need to make GA4 GDPR friendly when we already have analytics tools like Simple Analytics, Plausible and Fathom Analytics? Even though I love these tools, but they aren't an industry standard, GA4 is the industry standard… /9

GA4 is the industry standard for web analytics. More over you won't find many integrations with the latter, so if you want to use tools like

@ahrefs

@semrush

to then you'll have to use GA4. Plus, GA4 overall has much detailed data, which is super useful in most cases. /10

You might as well argue that the GA4 dashboard is too complex for beginners, and these new analytics tools solve that. That indeed true, and the dashboard is overwhelming for plenty of users, but you can use a tool like

@narrative_bi

or Data Studio to solve this for free. /11

You can use our GA4 integration in addition with

@SimpleAnalytic @PlausibleHQ @usefathom

and other similar tools. At Growthfyi, we use Custom GA4 + Simple Analytics to get the best of both worlds. GA4 provides complex data, while SA keeps things clean and simple. /12

Growthfyi ❤️ Privacy, and this is our part of making Google Analytics more inclined towards privacy and GDPR Compliance. /13

That's all for now, and will be happy to answer all the question you have regarding this. 📢 Calling out all Google Analytics lovers and enthusiasts to give it a shot. More on this: growthfyi.com/custom-ga /14