- Darvish tames Ohtani as Padres thrash Dodgers
- Asian markets track Wall St rally on jobs data
- Family affair as LeBron, Bronny James make Lakers bow
- Cancer, cardiovascular drugs tipped for Nobel as prize week opens
- As Great Salt Lake dries, Utah Republicans pardon Trump climate skepticism
- Amazon activist warns of 'critical situation' ahead of UN forum
- Mourners pay tribute to latest victims of deadly Channel crossing
- Phillies win thriller to level Mets series
- Yu bags first PGA Tour win with playoff win
- PSG held by Nice to leave Monaco clear at top of Ligue 1
- Lewandowski treble for leaders Barca as Atletico held
- Fresh Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Sucic stunner earns Real Sociedad draw against Atletico
- PSG draw with Nice, fail to reclaim top spot in Ligue 1
- Gudmundsson downs AC Milan after De Gea's penalty heroics for Fiorentina
- 'Yes' vote prevails in Kazakhstan nuclear plant vote: TV
- 'Difficult day': Oct 7 commemorations begin with festival memorial
- Commemorations begin for anniversary of attack on Israel
- 'Nothing gets in way of team,' says Celtics' MVP hopeful Tatum
- 'We will win!': Mozambique's ruling party confident at final vote rally
- Tunisia voting ends as Saied eyes re-election with critics behind bars
- Florida braces for Milton, FEMA head slams 'dangerous' Helene misinformation
- Postecoglou slams 'unacceptable' Spurs after 'terrible' loss at Brighton
- Marmoush double denies Bayern outright Bundesliga top spot
- Rallies worldwide call for Gaza, Lebanon ceasefire
- New 'Joker' film, a dark musical, tops N.America box office
- Man Utd stalemate keeps Ten Hag in danger, Spurs rocked by Brighton
- Drowned by hurricane, remote N.Carolina towns now struggle for water
- Vikings hold off Jets in London to stay unbeaten
- Ahead of attack anniversary, Netanyahu says: 'We will win'
- West Indies cruise to T20 World Cup win over Scotland
- Man Utd fire another blank in Aston Villa stalemate
- Lewandowski treble powers Liga leaders Barca to Alaves victory
- Russian activist killed on front line in Ukraine
- Openda strike briefly sends Leipzig top of Bundesliga
- Goal-shy Man Utd have to 'step up', says Ten Hag
- India bowl out Bangladesh for 127 in T20 opener
- Madueke rescues Chelsea in draw with 10-man Forest
- Beckett's belief rewarded as Bluestocking storms to Arc glory
- Trump on the stump, Harris hits airwaves in razor-edge US election
- Flash flooding kills three in northern Thailand
- Kaur leads India to victory over Pakistan in Women's T20 World Cup
- Juventus held by Cagliari after late penalty drama
- In France's Marseille, teen 'stabbed 50 times' then burned alive
- Ruthless Gauff beats Muchova in straight sets to win China Open
- India restrict Pakistan to 105-8 in Women's T20 World Cup
- England target repeat of Pakistan Test whitewash
- Penrith Panthers win fourth straight NRL title after downing Storm
- Weary Sinner happy for day off after battling into Shanghai last 16
- Pakistan's Masood warns England still a force without Stokes
How European rulings imperil flagship Google product
Lax laws and sweetheart deals are becoming a thing of the past for big tech firms, particularly in Europe where a series of rulings is posing a major threat to one of Google's flagship products.
More than half of the world's websites use Google Analytics to help their owners understand the behaviour of users.
The software, which deploys cookies to track user behaviour, costs nothing in cash terms -- though the vast trove of data helps to fuel Google's massive profits.
But activists have filed dozens of cases with regulators in Europe arguing that the tool breaches privacy laws by transferring data to the United States.
Regulators in several countries agree with activists and have ruled Google Analytics incompatible with European data privacy regulation (GDPR).
The rulings leave many European firms in a bind.
They can ditch Google and move to a privacy compliant option that costs money, or wait it out and hope for a solution from Google, the regulators or the politicians.
- Potential fixes -
Last week, Google said it would release a new version of its software that would not store IP addresses, the unique code that can identify individual computers.
The US firm has also built data centres in Europe.
However, the impact of these potential fixes is unclear. Regulators have not yet commented.
"Data protection authorities do not have the solution," says Florence Raynal of French regulator CNIL, which has ruled against Google.
"That solution must be provided by governments at a political level."
US companies are subject to a law known as the Cloud Act that allows US security agencies to access the data of foreign citizens regardless of where it is stored.
Although Google has argued that the risk posed by the Cloud Act is theoretical, it nevertheless makes it difficult for US firms to comply with the GDPR.
- 'At a crossroads' -
Marie-Laure Denis, head of CNIL, which is seen as a leader whose rulings are followed by other regulators, summed up the dilemma at a conference of the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) in Paris last week.
She said of American companies that "their business model should evolve, or the American legal framework should evolve".
But she accepted that the situation for European firms using Google Analytics was "complicated".
Pascal Thisse, who runs an agency advising companies on how to comply with GDPR, says firms find themselves "at a crossroads" with no clear idea of the path to take.
"If you tell a client who uses Google Ads to remove Google Analytics, everything collapses because it is the foundation of the system," he says.
But to comply with European rulings, companies would need to prove that US intelligence is not interested in the data collected -- an undertaking well beyond the means of small firms.
Max Schrems, the Austrian lawyer whose NGO filed the cases with the data protection regulators, also accepts there is no easy fix.
"It's hard for us because usually we try to litigate stuff where there is a solution and in this case we have a political problem," he told a virtual event last week.
He said US law allowed mass surveillance on non-American citizens, which clashed with the EU's charter on fundamental rights.
"Either the US changes its laws or the European Union changes its fundamental founding principles," he said.
Although he regarded neither option as overly realistic right now, he added: "I see more potential in the US for change because there should be a huge business interest in the US to have data from foreigners treated fairly."
L.Torres--PC