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So, Google Analytics is now illegal to use in France and Austria, with other European countries likely to follow suit. Not sure, a lot of people understand the gravity of what that means. Analytics is at the core of Google’s business. It not only powers personalized ads, but also things like search and Youtube suggestions. This is going to ripple back and forth: less websites using Analytics means less profiling, leading to less relevant video suggestions, fewer videos watched, fewer ads seen (and clicked!) and less money earned.

That’s Google’s (as well as Youtube influencer’s) problem though. The more interesting problem is that Analytics is not only used for tracking on websites, but within Android Apps as well (and it is much more pervasive there). The Playstore doesn’t allow for distributing different APKs based on country, but it does allow for restricting apps on a per country level.

The EU cannot tell Google to shut down the Analytics backend (that’s US turf), but it can tell the company to restrict access to apps, integrating Analytics, in its territory.