Italian “Cookie Law” and the Misinformation about Google Analytics

There is a lot of hype in Italy about this “cookie law” put into force since June, 2 that makes mandatory to obtain the consent of a user accessing a website to allow his “profiling” through the use of cookies.As always, a ? fleet of ? “advisers” kept, full steam, pushing companies to comply with this regulation, foreseeing dire consequences for the non-abiding companies, especially those using Google’s Analytics.

This is not entirely correct, so it is better to clarify a few points:

First of all: “cookie law” is not a “law”, but just an order issued by the Data Protection Authority under its “peculiar” view of the EU Data Protection Directive(s),

Second: the data protection directive (and its local enforcements) work only with “personal data”, i.e. data that identify or made possible to identify a natural person,

Third: a user that access anonymously a website doesn’t reveal his identity, thus the data protection act doesn’t come into play,

It comes from above that a website using Google Analytics without looking of the identity of the user is not subjected this stupid “cookie law”.

Simple as that.