Google Universal Analytics is being discontinued - what now?

In a post on the Analytics support page, Google just announced the discontinuation of the older version of Google Analytics in the form of Universal Analytics as of July 2023. Not only will no new data be collected for the Universal Properties after that. Rather, after a transition period of probably 6 months, all old data will be completely deleted from the properties.

If the old data is still needed by the account holders for comparison purposes, it makes sense to save it beforehand via an export or to generate corresponding reports one last time. [Addendum: Markus Baersch has written a helpful thought-provoking article on this topic: Backup Universal Analytics data - what and how]

The reason for this complete discontinuation is probably due to the current data protection discussion. Especially the current (preliminary) rulings in France and Austria, which assess the use of Universal Analytics as currently not possible in the EU in compliance with data protection.

Google itself points to the newer Analytics version GA4 as a replacement for Universal Analytics. This service is also free of charge and can be set up quite quickly. Google accounts set up after October 2020 may even already use the corresponding code and no longer need to be elaborately adapted, at least during integration on the website or in Google Tag Manager.

If GA4 is to continue to be used later, it is worthwhile in any case to set up the property immediately in addition to Universal Analytics and to run it in parallel in the last year before the discontinuation in order to get a feel for the new figures. With GA4, the concept of data collection and preparation fundamentally changes, so that the respective statistics are no longer directly comparable with each other.

Google currently emphasizes that GA4 will collect data in a much more privacy-compliant manner than its predecessor. In principle, for example, it is possible to use GA4 without cookies, since the data is now collected on an event-based (and no longer session-based) basis. Users' IP addresses are already automatically anonymized.

However, the adjustments are still not enough to satisfy EU data protection authorities. GA4 also reads data from user end devices and still evaluates the data obtained in data centers in the USA.

In the long term, you should therefore at least start looking around for alternatives for your own analysis needs, where it is ensured that the data is not analyzed outside the EU, or if possible does not leave the sphere of influence of the provider.

The discontinuation of Universal Analytics is therefore in any case a good reason to fundamentally reconsider the current state of one's own web analytics tools.

In the meantime, there are more and more warnings from data protection authorities when Universal Analytics cookies and Analytics tracking scripts are delivered without the explicit consent of the user.

It is definitely not enough to provide the use in the privacy policy with reference to legitimate interest or a reference to a user-side opt-out in the privacy policy. Rather, the user's consent must be explicitly requested in the consent management tool (colloquially better known as the "cookie banner").

Experience shows that the recorded user data is reduced to about one third of the previous figures after switching to Consent. Therefore, it is also important to document the time of the switch to Consent in order to be able to meaningfully justify the collapse of the figures later in the reports.

In the case of long-standing and diverse web projects, it is possible that many different analysis programs have been set up for reporting purposes, some of which are accessed by different people or service providers. It therefore makes sense to take stock here.

• Which analysis accounts currently exist at Google?
• Who has administrator/owner rights there and can pass these on?
• Who / which users have been granted access to these accounts in the past? Are these users all still current or can some of them possibly be eliminated?
• Are the rights assigned sensibly?

We generally recommend that all accounts be created with clearly identifiable, personalized addresses.

If the analysis programs are delivered via Google Tag Manager, it should also be clarified here which accounts and containers have been created for the respective projects and who has access rights there.

This opportunity can also be used to check: who is currently evaluating the results of the web analysis? Is it ensured that possible weaknesses of the web presence are identified and improved? Are the events that are important for the hopefully well-defined goals of the website already sufficiently recorded and evaluated?

In some cases, the data from the initially elaborately set up web analytics accounts is not used intensively at all and / or used for improvements. If this is the case and approximate access figures are only to be passed on once a year, the website operator can think about deactivating web analytics for the page in question and then restricting himself to pure log file analysis data.

One positive effect of not doing so: it may be possible to completely dispense with the Consent Management banner.

If the web analytics data is absolutely needed and compliance with EU data protection directives is an important issue for the company, the opportunity should be taken to evaluate alternative analytics tools that allow data processing on the company's own computers or at least guaranteed on servers in the EU.

One possible alternative is the free analysis tool Matomo. Here, there are various options for carrying out web analysis in a privacy-compliant manner. In certain configurations, the use of Matomo is even possible without the setting of cookies, so that the use of consense management tools can be dispensed with.

In this case, however, in addition to the conversion costs, there are additional license fees for sensible necessary extensions as well as costs for data storage space, which must be included in the calculation.

It should also be kept in mind that linking with data from other Google tools, such as Search Console data or Google Ads campaigns, is much more difficult than with Google Analytics.

Older netizens probably remember the logfile analysis tools that used to be common, like AWStats with its charmingly dusty HTML 3.1 layouts. AWStats is indeed still around and can be used for the very simple analysis needs, if it was ensured during configuration that IP addresses are evaluated anonymously and are not stored or even published beyond the allowed time periods. If no sophisticated event analyses are required, this solution is certainly a possible alternative to Universal Analytics.

Presumably, there will be other providers of improved log file analysis programs in this field in the near future, which will be designed from the outset for privacy-compliant analysis. Presumably, these will then be combined with session-based analyses to include events. So it's worth keeping your eyes open.