Shopping Cart
There are no more items in your cart
- Tecnoacquisti.com
- Regulations and Privacy
Many website owners have received an email from a certain Federico Leva (he is an activist) requesting the removal of their data from Google Analytics. Let's see in detail if this is possible and how to do it. Personally, I consider this act simply a provocation and the mass sending of emails is liable to be considered Spam and Phishing. Responding to the request through an online survey created with limesurvey.org and without any verifiable reference. The same sending email noreply@limesurvey.org is debatable. So much so that I reported the received email to the Italian Data Protection Authority, on Tecnoacquisti.com we do not use Google Analytics. However, everyone should consult their privacy advisor for guidance on whether to respond or not.
I would like to point out that you may have Google Analytics tracking that you are unaware of, which is used by services implemented on your e-commerce or website, through iframes or external JS code. For example, some verified review services do this. Obviously, it is always the site owner who must respond to this.
I am waiting for some information from the trade associations, and I have sent a request for information regarding this to the Data Protection Authority. Federico Leva nonetheless raises a real issue that we have already addressed here. Therefore, I decided to write this article to explain how to remove a user from Google Analytics or how to make the correct request for removal. Personally, I sent it to limesurvey.org after having to visit the site to delve into the activities of this activist.
Can we remove a user's data from Analytics?
Yes, we can certainly do that, but Federico Leva's email is missing an important piece of information, namely his Client ID associated with the cookies released through our domain. It is missing because, obviously, the ID changes for each site visited. If he had provided a real email and not a survey to respond to, I could even ask him to provide me with his and remove it from the GA account that I haven't had for almost a year. To retrieve your Client ID, the simplest solution is to use the extension EditThisCookie, which I have often mentioned as being very useful.
In the images, an example of GA Client ID associated with three websites: PayPal.it, PrestaShop.com, and ilfattoquotidiano.it. These IDs are exclusively associated with the cookies generated by my workstation during the visit. Using EditThisCookie is very simple, just:
1. Click on the cookie-shaped icon
2. Search for _ga in the list of cookies associated with the site we are visiting, open the entry, and copy the value that starts with GA ...
With Firefox, just click CTRL + Shift + I and go to Storage
Keep in mind that a website can have multiple GA properties, for example, one with truncated IP (what they call anonymous) and a complete one behind cookie law, or a UA property and a GA4. Therefore, rather than having yourself removed from Google Analytics statistics, it is much quicker to delete your browsing cookies and related data from your visit to a specific website.
How to remove Federico Leva or another user from Google Analytics?
Anyone has the right to request the removal or modification of their data, as mandated by the GDPR. And we are required to remove it and respond. In fact, I have carried out this activity several times against some spam newsletters, including those from political parties, without ever receiving a response. And filing a complaint with the Authority takes time and, above all, is not free, so I have never pushed further.
Google allows it; with the Client ID, we can do it. Through a truncated IP (even if it were complete) or other data, we cannot do it.
In particular, the IP address provided by Leva is found at 2 bytes, so there are 65025 - 1 possible IPs of other users that would correspond.
To do this, we go to Public -> User Exploration
We search for the user with the ID they provided us
A simple click on delete and it's done, the data of that user is no longer there
Once completed, you can inform the user that their data has been deleted, perhaps inviting them to clear their browsing cookies and, above all, if they care about their privacy, to browse with a VPN and if they are really paranoid, with a Double VPN on the Orion network using the Tor Browser.
Should we continue using Analytics or not?
As mentioned, Federico Leva raised a real issue, bordering on Phishing as it is a dynamic related to this type of cyber attack. In light of what has already been raised by the Austrian, French, and now the Italian Guarantor. In my opinion, it is time to change, to fully reclaim our data and use Matomo for statistics. As I addressed in the article:
Should I respond to Federico Leva or not?
You should ask this to the person who follows you for privacy or to your legal advisor.
Even though I find it very difficult, the survey has disappeared from LimeSurvey, replaced by: "We are sorry but this survey is currently not available - please come back later." LimeSurvey confirms that they have banned the user: "I am sorry for the inconvenience. This customer has abused our survey service for sending out this email. The customer is blocked permanently."
As mentioned, the sending email is noreply@limesurvey.org and is of the noreply type, so no one reads any responses, and it is not the activist's email. The link to the survey/forum, even though it uses their domain, redirects to limesurvey.org. Sending a request to the Italian Data Protection Authority via their PEC at protocollo@pec.gpdp.it asking for clarifications costs you nothing. Now that you know how to read your Google Analytics Client ID, it doesn't cost you anything to ask https://www.limesurvey.org/ to remove you from their Google Analytics statistics. The support email is: support@limesurvey.org.
It is certainly a great marketing activity; now thousands of e-commerce and website owners know the services offered by limesurvey.org, as well as the activities of this activist.
Not bad. You can both publish and cite the activist's email, as it is public and promoted by the activist on social media.
The above is purely a technical point of view; for the legal matter, I refer to the excellent article by the LegalBlink Team:
https://legalblink.it/post/federico-leva-google-analytics.html
Author: Loris Modena
SENIOR DEVELOPER
Per Ind Loris Modena, owner of Arte e Informatica, started working in the IT sector in 1989 as a system administrator responsible for the maintenance and installation of computer systems. He began programming for the web in 1997, focusing on CGI programming in PERL and later transitioning to programming in PHP and JavaScript. During this time, he became familiar with the Open Source world and the management of Linux servers.