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36:54

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

data, people, privacy, google analytics, website, browser, fonts, google, tool, eu, business, analytics, bit, great, webmaster, case, problem, visitors, cookie, installed

SPEAKERS

Debbie Reynolds, Adriaan van Rossum

Debbie Reynolds

Personal views and opinions expressed by our podcast guests are their own and are not legal advice or official statements by their organizations.

Debbie Reynolds  00:00

Hello, my name is Debbie Reynolds. They call me "The Data Diva”. This is "The Data Diva Talks" Privacy podcast, where we discuss Data Privacy issues with industry leaders around the world with information that businesses need to know now. I have a special guest from one of my favorite cities in the world, Amsterdam. I have Adriaan van Rossum, the Founder and CEO of Simple Analytics. Hello.

Adriaan van Rossum  00:40

Hi, there. Thanks for having me.

Debbie Reynolds  00:42

Yeah. Well, this is great. I'm glad we were able to connect. You and I reconnected on LinkedIn. I think we were doing a joint, were at an event in the US. The Rise of Privacy Tech? And you contacted me, and we're both going to be at this event, we talk. And you sent me some information about your product. And I thought I love what you're doing. I love your privacy focus. And I thought this would be a great way for us to get to know each other and get to have my audience get to know you. Well, first of all, tell me a bit about you and your journey in privacy, and then a bit about Simple Analytics.

Adriaan van Rossum  01:29

Yeah, sounds great. Yeah. So the journey started when I was fairly young; I would say, now, I'm 32. Still not very old, I would say. When I was in high school, I was just interested in building websites and doing this kind of stuff. And in the early days, there were so many different ways that you could connect websites with browsers, and in the time, you had Internet Explorer six, for example. And that was a very, yeah, how would you say it,  it was a very premature browser at the time. And what you can do is very weird stuff. So if people would visit your website, you will be able to get their clipboard, for example, nowadays, that wouldn't be a part of any browser feature, but yeah, it's something that wasn't really thought of. And I started playing with that. And I realize, hey, this is very privacy-invasive of a feature of a browser, right? Everyone can access the data of others now. So there are there was, I think, the first moment where I started to realize like, what the capabilities of websites are, and what you can do as a webmaster, or as a Website Builder. From that moment on, privacy got more important for me, and yeah, it always kept an interest. And at some point, I was installing Google Analytics for some clients, and I was working as a freelancer them. And yeah, it didn't feel right. I really wanted to do something else and then feeding all the data of their visitors also to Google Analytics. And yeah, we know they use it for other purposes than just showing you the analytics, right. So I thought, like, okay, I need to do something about this. And I talked with my girlfriend about it. And she said, like, why don't you build something yourself? And I was like, yeah, that's just what I'm going to do. So I started building Simple Analytics. I think it was four years ago. And since then, yeah, it has been super fun to work on something that's your passion. And at the same time, you're doing something that’s, yeah, a little bit better for the world. So that's how I started. And that's still what a mission is. And yeah, I really love to work on this.

Debbie Reynolds  04:07

Yeah, well, that's really cool. I think right now, and I guess people are really focused on analytics right now. Because of this Google. There's a ruling in the EU around Google Analytics. And there's kind of a lot of talk in the EU around cookies and how websites work. And there's an IAB Europe case going on in Europe right now. So there's a lot of focus in Europe right now on websites and how they collect data. And I think people in the US are watching this very closely because this may impact the way they do business. But one thing that's really interesting, I decided many moons ago to become a webmaster because I was interested in how websites work and I was interested in how the Internet works, how I wanted to know how the data flowed. And some of the stuff I found out. I was horrified.

Adriaan van Rossum  05:08

You did that?

Debbie Reynolds  05:08

Oh, yeah, I couldn't believe it.

Adriaan van Rossum  05:10

What did you find out?

Debbie Reynolds  05:11

Oh, my God, just how people can manipulate data and how the data flows. You say, okay, I just add data here, it is only there is like, I know, it flows to other places, you know, it's been scraped. Data about you are being scraped from other places on the Internet. I mean, it was just unbelievable. But what one of the things that I found out, and this is something that you alluded to, and that people don't really understand, and I hope because of some of these cases that are going on their understanding, there's a lot of like passive data collection, that happens, right? So it's like, you put data on the Internet, and you think you know if you're a webmaster, or you're someone who's updating data on the Internet, you're not understanding that the tools you may be integrating into your website may be collecting and selling data, that you didn't intend for it to do that. But that is actually exactly what it's doing. So tell me a little bit about that part of the Internet.

Adriaan van Rossum  06:13

Yeah, it's also very hard to make sure that there's no data going somewhere else. It's very difficult to know, okay, we use this service now. And we want to find out what services they use. But it's very hard to do. Like in Europe, you have now the privacy policy, which kind of states it a bit. But it doesn't have to go into detail. So you don't really know which other businesses are using your data as well. So it's very not transparent as it should be. So it's very hard for someone to make a decision. Okay, this is a product where the data will stay in the product and not so much go somewhere else. And it's simple, we, of course, care a lot about it, because we want to have our data within the Netherlands, or at least in Europe. And that's an important factor for us. But also, for us, it's super difficult to find the right tools to make that happen. But it is possible like you can always find a European alternative. But it's not the same as having this number one product you are very used to, for example, right? For example, use Google Docs or something like that; there's not a great alternative for that. So it's very hard for a lot of businesses to, first of all, find a solution that's different. And it’s, for example, better privacy-wise, but then you also have to do a little bit of a step back currently for how the UI will work and how fast you will be with the software. So what I really hope for is that in the near future, more and more products and more and more builders and makers will understand this problem and that there will be more solutions within Europe. And also hopefully with payments from the European government, as well to make this happen. Because it's very hard to see where the data is going through, so yeah, we better build something that's privacy-wise, a good solution. You're familiar with this Google Analytics case; I'm sure that's going on in Europe right now.

Adriaan van Rossum  08:28

Yeah, yeah.

Debbie Reynolds  08:30

People don't really understand what this case is about and what it means for the audience. Give them a simple version of what's happening with this case and what they need to be thinking about as a result of it.

Adriaan van Rossum  08:48

Yeah. Also, recently, my partner wrote a blog post about it. So maybe it's nice when the show notes, where it is, in detail, explained what exactly happened in this case. So I will go through it. Not so thoroughly, but for people that want to, then they can do that. So actually, the Austrian regulations authority opened a complaint that someone had visited a website from someone from a business in Austria. Okay, so I can explain that. The Austrian equivalent of the Data Protection Authority. They got a complaint from someone on a health care website. And the complaint was that the data was being shared with American servers. And since 2020, we have a so-called Schrems II, which doesn't make sense, like illegal. So you don't want to send data of your customers to US servers. Before that, we had a data protection shield, which was awesome. But now that shield is gone. So basically, users don't send sensitive or personal data to US servers. And so what they found out was that it was doing this. So they were sending data to Google Analytics and Google Analytics; their servers are yet from Google. So and also in the US. What was the problem here is that they were thinking they were safe, as in they were anonymizing the IP addresses. And it feels like anonymizing IP addresses is something that isn't personal data anymore, right? Because it's not relating to one person, but maybe to a group of persons. But what they now said is that it's personally identifiable information. So they say even if you anonymize the IP address, you're still in trouble. You still can't do that. So then, there is no solution within Google Analytics that I know of. And that it would make sense to still be able to run it in the EU. So that's basically the thing. So the IP address is anonymized. But it's not anonymized. It's still personal data. So, therefore, it's still not allowed to use it in the EU. And this is not final yet. So it's still also in the Netherlands; we're still talking about it. It's not final yet. So it's not forbidden just yet. But it can happen that it will be forbidden in the near future. And that's where a lot of people are looking for different solutions. And yeah, we see that as well. There's so much more attraction to our product because people are kind of scared. Oh, I don't want to have some bad privacy case on my business. So let's better get it fixed.

Debbie Reynolds  12:09

So the issue is the data transfer, right? Without the knowledge and consent of the individual. And a lot of times, I think, you remember that. So you're someone who built websites in the past, you know, building websites now is much different, where a lot of things are baked in. So I remember when you used to have to go out and get a Google Analytics ID, and then you have to add it to a website. And now, you don't have to do that because it's already in there.

Adriaan van Rossum  12:45

Yeah, it's usually just a tick off a box, like, hey, fill in your idea. Funnily enough, I did a test a few weeks ago, installing Google Analytics. I still think it's fairly complex, as in, just getting that ID parameter that you use in different tools or getting the script tag to install on your website if you are a developer. It's not easy, I would say, but a lot of integrations are there. Right? So if you're using WordPress, it's just a click of a button, and you installed the Google Analytics plugin, and you're done. So that's an advantage. There's a lot of tooling around Google Analytics. Yeah. And that's something that is always a problem with being the biggest right? And you have the most tooling. But still, it's, I think, a fairly complex product.

Debbie Reynolds  13:40

Right, exactly. People want to be on the Internet, and they want to obviously keep businesses or other people from other places looking at their stuff. But then they have to make sure that their website is compliant within their country about how to transfer data. Another case, I don't want to pick on Google, but this is about fonts. I talked with another guest on the podcast about fonts. It is funny because we were talking about fonts before this case came out. So talk to me explain what the issue is about fonts so that this case was about Google Fonts. But fonts, in general, can be problematic if they're not embedded. Right. So explain what this problem is, although a lot of people don't understand it.

Adriaan van Rossum  14:35

So fonts are, yeah, it feels like it's something that's it's not bad, right? It doesn't do anything on your website; it just makes it more beautiful, right. But the thing is, you're sending a request to some other server to load the fonts in. And that's something that can be abused. It also cannot be abused, right? If I host a website like here, this is the font I created. Everyone, everyone is allowed to visit it. Just use it whatever you want, that's fine. But if it's not the case, and I don't know about a specific case with Google, why it's a bad thing. I can look it up later. But it's more like you're sending data to different websites when you embed forms. So that's in a nutshell, it is. So you're getting data from a different website, and that's not yours. So you're sending also your visitor's IP address and stuff about your visitors to that website. And it depends on the website, what they do with it.

Debbie Reynolds  15:44

Right. And it's not just a Google issue, because you know, Adobe has fonts, you know, there are a lot of fonts right, that people can use. So I think the issue is having, I guess, that library installed in a way that your website doesn't have to call a separate location, you know, I'm saying for the fonts to be installed, or on either all your website or install someplace more locally related, is that correct?

Adriaan van Rossum  16:14

Yeah. So it's fairly easy to download the font and install it on your own website. And then you're bypassing the whole problem of sharing the IP addresses to Google. And I think that was what the case is about the decision in the German court was like, you're sending IP addresses to Google, without authorization or legitimate reasons to do so. So that's, that's the problem. So you probably want to download the fonts and also the Google Forms; you usually can just download this click of a button, you download the forms. And there's enough tutorials online where you can search for how to embed your own forms on your website. And then you have solved that problem. So yeah, it takes a little bit more effort. But privacy-wise, it's way better.

Debbie Reynolds  17:10

What I noticed over the years is that this is around the time that GDPR became a law, and it started into enforcement. So say 2016 to 2018, I noticed that some of these tools, like Google Analytics, they were transferring more of the responsibility over to the user to the webmaster. And so I was concerned about that. So I'm like, people don't even know exactly what they're doing. So I've heard a lot of people say, well, I'm compliant with GDPR. Because I use Google like, well, that's not their responsibility. That's kind of your responsibility. But I think a lot of people didn't understand that. They think, okay, I use a major tool. I'm compliant. What are your thoughts about it?

Adriaan van Rossum  18:01

Yeah, it's a good thing that you bring this up. Google is definitely walking away from responsibility here. Right? They build this tool. And they say, oh, it's your responsibility, how to use it. But at the same time, they have many users from the EU and also from California, and there are different places where privacy laws are in place. And then it is their responsibility, right? They have a responsibility to their users to at least inform them and those around them to make it easy for them. And they did the bare minimum of what was required. So they did the IP anonymization, there was a feature, it was a big thing for them, like, oh, this is totally okay. Today, or a few weeks ago, we found out it's not okay; it's not enough. So yeah, they have been walking away from a mess that they created since a long time, and I really empathize with John from before, the browser episode you had with him. And I think we can agree a lot on how Google is in this landscape and how much responsibility it takes, and it's way too little.

Debbie Reynolds  19:14

So tell me about where your tool comes in. So this is actually prime time for you and your tool and tools like it. Because I think people, for the most part, people are like, okay, I just want to do business. I don't want to be in a fight with the EU about different things, and people don't know what to do. So I feel like some people, they're like, okay, well, I'll keep Google Analytics, but I don't know exactly how to change what I'm doing. Right? Because a lot of people they've built all these workflows on top of this. They don't know how to get through it. But as an alternative, talk about how your tool is different.

Adriaan van Rossum  19:59

Yeah, so the first thing is basically the cookies, right? It's been an important subject for a long time now. And that's the major part of why Simple Analytics is different from Google Analytics. So we don't use cookies. But also, cookies are not just a cookie on your browser, and it's like everything that is used to track a visitor. So it's basically a term for everything that you do around tracking visitors. So if you have an anonymous IP address, and you still attract people that feel somewhat like a cookie, if you're having some storage in your browser, that's not a cookie; it's still legally a cookie. It's not defined like that. Because the GDPR wants to be very broad on how they define those things. But there's one thing that the, for example, in the UK, and there you have Becker, that's a version of GDPR, they are way more clear on what is a cookie and what is not. So if people want to know, okay, I want to know more about what is included in that; Becker is a really, really good resource for that. But that's a big difference between Simple Analytics and Google Analytics. So we don't use cookies; we don't track people at all. And then the next thing is there's a mind shift needed or required at least one because if you think about all the things that you use in Google Analytics, like this, if you really think about it, it's maybe 1% that you use. You want to know how many visitors, you want to know, where is this bike coming from? You want to know how is my newsletter performing, and stuff like that? So that stuff you want to know, but there's so much more in Google Analytics. And I think for a lot of people, we should ask ourselves, do we really need all that type of information? I recently spoke to a customer and a person who said, hey, we have a business here, and we don't use analytics. And the business was doing great. And that's also something that, yeah, would be really, really good to think about, right? What is the data that you really need? How can I run my business? Instead of doing it the other way around, like gathering all the data, you need or don't need? And then you ask yourself later, hmm, did we really need this data? Or what is the question we are going to be getting on this data? So I think we need a mind shift to change into thinking about what we actually need in data. So that's why I think Google Analytics is way too much for most people; there's way too much. So that's also a reason why Simple Analytics is a great alternative. Because you're only getting the needed information, so you get the page, which you get to how long people are in your, on your pages, and stuff like that, you can see where people are coming from, is your newsletter performing well. And stuff like that. So you can still get all the insights that most people need. And that's usually enough for most people. And that's something that we should realize. And then on top, the last difference is, we heard that quite a bit now, is Google Analytics is not free, right? So it sounds free. But yeah, we all know, it's not free, like you're still paying, we have the privacy of your visitors and yourself. So you could say, like, how can we fix a privacy issue? Well, at first, probably if you want to have analytics, you need to pay for it. Otherwise, you'll be in a different way. And I think that's where the EU does a great job. And they're far from where they need to be. But the EU tries to protect the visitors of those websites. And I think that's a great place to start. And we try to help with that mission as much as possible.

Debbie Reynolds  24:31

You hit on something really interesting. I would love to explore this a bit more. And you're talking about tools that are free, right? What happens and I wish that there was something, I don't know in law or something where they can change this, so the loophole is when you use a service or something, and it's free, there is a value exchange there. That happens, right? So yeah, the problem with the free tool is that the value exchange tends to be very asymmetrical, and it's not as beneficial to the individual. So, let's say percentage-wise, you sign up for a free tool, maybe it benefits you 20%. But the tool that you're using for free may benefit from you like 1,000%. Yeah, so I think that, when you have something, I've run through this recently, where I had something that I was using, and I thought, you know, I'm really not comfortable with the asymmetrical nature of this exchange, right? So I decided to go to something that I paid for the way I was like, okay, this is because I'm paying for this tool, it sort of evens the playing field a bit, obviously, the company, you're going to make a profit. But it's more of an even exchange, I feel. What are your thoughts?

Adriaan van Rossum  26:13

Yeah, exactly. I'm saying it from a person that makes money on this, right? So this is where the listeners should know that. But at the same time, I really believe that if there is indeed this percentage difference, right, like 100, or 1,000%, for example, you'll have a really calculation of, I think it was a few years ago already, but if Facebook would charge people, they should charge people $7 a year, and then they would have as much profit as they would now with their ad business. So they would charge everybody $7. And then you think like, yeah, but nobody is giving Facebook $7, maybe 1% of their customer base will do it. And the percentage maybe higher even. So then everybody leaves a platform, and a platform dies, right? So there's this thing with free software or free products; it's very, very hard to get the majority of people or a very big portion of people without charging them for it. At the same time, very difficult to make them pay for it. So what do you do? And I think there's a very good moment right now, where more and more people think, oh, but if I charge and have a smaller group of people, that's also great. Like, you see a lot of things like sub-sec, and you see a lot of independent makers and so many creators that are working on something and selling it directly to their fans, basically. And I think that's a very great way to start it. And then I think we will have way more smaller companies. And I think that's great. Because if you have one massive company, there's a lot of power to be abused, right? So I think we're going in the right direction here, where there are many different and small companies. And then we're finally at some point where one company can't say, oh, we're abusing the law or abusing our power. And that's okay. And then the next company will do the same. So I think we're, yeah, we're on track to something really great if this goes in that direction.

Debbie Reynolds  28:39

What else is happening in the world of technology or privacy that's concerning you right now, in terms of if you're thinking about the future, right? So I like to talk to people like you about development tools. I feel like you're really kind of future-focused, right, where we sort of need to go. So what's happening right now that's concerning you.

Adriaan van Rossum  29:05

I think what is concerning me is that the power is moving a bit to browsers, and especially the Google Chrome browser. And that in the beginning, it was a great thing. They developed a very fast browser and did some very great things technology-wise, and it was great. And then now the whole landscape of browsers is basically based off that one browser. So Google Chrome is created by an open-source version. And the open-source version is called Chromium. And now, almost all browsers are built with that version with Chromium. And what Google now is doing is they start adding, they say, privacy features into their browser. But it's Google. So there, you always have to think twice if they say something regarding privacy. And this time, it's no different. Like, they got a lot of backpressures, or how do you say that? From from FLOCs, for example. So building profiles in the browser, so they didn't have to track people. At the same time, you're tracking people in the browser. So you're just moving the whole problem into something else and then say, we don't track you. So it's a terrible power move of Google to do that. At the same time? I think it was four years ago when I started my company. There was also this new Google version. And it had the login icon on the top right corner, right. So there's this little avatar, and then you're logged into the browser. And there was at that point, I thought, okay, this is is going too far. And at the time, they said, yeah, but we're not going to use this to look, at different sites just for Google services. Until now, and now they use it for multiple stuff, including tracking, and then it's like, oh, but you said the thing to, like, have the privacy landscape except you. And then later you do something else. And that's what they did. That's what WhatsApp is doing. There are so many businesses that do that. So it's very hard to believe those businesses. And I think the only solution for that is to break them up into smaller pieces or to shut the practice down. And for example, don't allow them in the EU or in other privacy-aware countries or places, and then they need to change. So I definitely think there needs to be a law for those businesses to really fix the privacy issue.

Debbie Reynolds  31:51

Do you think there'll be a change? Do you think, as a result of this litigation, that Google's going to make any changes here?

Adriaan van Rossum  32:00

I think they will do the bare minimum that's required for this. Yeah, it's hard to say what they will do. But the history shows that they are not really going to fix the problem. Because their business model is built around tracking so that they're not going to say, tomorrow or next week, hey, you know what, we did something bad in the last few years, we're going to solve it now for once and for good. And we're going to do it like this. We don't track anyone, anybody, anymore. And sorry, to our shareholders. But yeah, the company will devaluate quite a bit. That's not what they can do. Right? The shareholders will be very mad, people will be replaced, and they will keep doing what they will do. So yeah, I don't really think that will solve an issue. I do think that with legislation, you can change them a bit. But at the same time, in their balance sheets or yearly report, they already have a budget for fines, right? So it's just part of the business model to pay a few fines, and you can continue doing what you do. So yeah, I don't really trust that will change that much. But I do think their pie is going to shrink in the future. So there will be more and more smaller companies that eat up their market share. And at some point, they will be obsolete.

Debbie Reynolds  33:33

Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. So if it were the world, according to Adriaan, and we did everything that you said, what would be your wish for privacy anywhere in the world, whether it's technology, human stuff, regulation?

Adriaan van Rossum  33:50

I would say that every individual would be able to say where the data will end up and how and they will be in the power of it. So I would say if you install an application, let's say, you installed TikTok, you should be able to say, like, okay, I don't want to have my data being shared with anybody else. I don't want to have my data on servers in China; for example, I don't want to have my data being used for this and this and this just for this. I think if, at some point, we will be there. Or at least I hope, and I really think that. Yeah, that's one of the things in an ideal world where that will, yeah, that would be my ideal world where you can really say like, privacy belongs to the individual again.

Debbie Reynolds  34:47

Right, right. That's great. That's great. So how do you tell people how they can get to know you and your tool?

Adriaan van Rossum  34:58

Yeah, so it's SimpleAnalytics.com, And we're active on Twitter also on LinkedIn. And we have a nice, nice newsletter. It's called the PrivacyNewsletter.com. And that's quite nice because it shows a few tools every month. So you can kind of see what's changing in the landscape. We have some news articles and some new features that we launched in our tool. So yeah, I would recommend subscribing to that one. And yeah, you can always try it out there too. It's as easy as two weeks of a free trial, and just go to SimpleAnalytics.com.

Debbie Reynolds  35:41

Perfect. Perfect. Well, thank you so much. This is great to have you on the show. I wish I were in Amsterdam right now, so I'm kind of jealous.

Adriaan van Rossum  35:50

Oh, you're always welcome here. To be fair, it's a bit gray and rainy.

Debbie Reynolds  35:56

I'll take it. I'll take it. I just love it over there. It's so much fun in the Netherlands.

Adriaan van Rossum  36:05

Let me know when you do. We'll do the coffee.

Debbie Reynolds  36:07

Oh, totally. Totally. All right. Well, thank you so much, and we'll talk soon.

Adriaan van Rossum  36:12

Awesome. Thank you