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• Switch to Matomo for WordPress from Google Analytics

  10 mars 2020, par Joselyn Khor — Plugins, Privacy
  While Google Analytics may seem like a great plugin option on the WordPress directory, we’d like to present a new ethical alternative called Matomo for WordPress, which gives you 100% data ownership and privacy protection.

  Firstly what does Google Analytics offer in WordPress ?

  When you think of getting insights about visitors on your WordPress (WP) sites, the first thing that comes to mind might be Google Analytics. Why not right ? Especially when there are good free Google Analytics plugins, like Monster Insights and Site Kit. 

  These give you access to a great analytics platform, but the downside with Google Analytics is the lack of transparency around privacy and data ownership.

  

  Matomo Analytics for WordPress is an ethical alternative to Google Analytics for WordPress

  If you’re more interested in a privacy-respecting, GDPR compliant alternative, there’s now a new option on the WP plugins directory : Matomo Analytics – Ethical Stats. Powerful Insights. 

  It’s free and can be considered the #1 ethical alternative to Google Analytics in terms of features and capabilities. Why is it important to choose a web analytics platform that respects privacy ?

  

  Risk facing fines for non-GDPR compliance and privacy/data breaches

  In Europe there’s an overarching privacy law called GDPR which provides better privacy protection for EU citizens on the web. 

  Websites need to be GDPR compliant and follow rules governing how personal data is used or risk facing fines up to 4% of their yearly revenue for data/privacy breaches or non-compliance. Even if your website is based outside of Europe. If you have visitors from Europe, you can still be liable.

  

  In the US, there isn’t one main privacy law, there hundreds on both the federal and state levels to protect the personal data (or personally identifiable information) of US residents – like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). There are also industry-specific statutes related to data privacy like HIPAA.

  To protect your website from coming under fire for privacy breaches, best practise is to find platforms that are privacy and GDPR compliant by design. 

  When you own your own data – as with the case of Matomo – you have control over where data is stored, what you’re doing with it, and can better protect the privacy of your visitors.

  At this point you may be asking, “what’s the point of an analytics platform if you have to follow all these rules ?”

  The importance of analytics for your WordPress site

  • Figuring out how your audience behaves to increase conversions
  • Setting, tracking and measuring conversion goals
  • Being able to find insights to improve and optimize your site 
  • Making smarter, data-driven decisions so your company can thrive, rather than risk being left behind

  Analytics is used to answer questions like :

  • Where are your website visitors coming from (location) ?
  • How many people visit your website ?
  • Which are the most popular pages on your site ?
  • What sources of traffic are coming to your site (social, marketing campaigns, search) ?
  • Is your marketing campaign performing better this month compared to last ?

  Matomo can answer all of the above questions. BONUS : On top of that, with Matomo you get the peace of mind knowing you’re the only one who has access to those answers.

  

  Matomo Analytics vs Google Analytics on WordPress

  The top 5 most useful features in Matomo Analytics that’s comparable to GA

  1. Campaign measurement – traffic. Matomo also has a URL builder that lets you track which campaigns are working effectively
  2. Tracking goals. Matomo empowers you to set goals you can track. Being able to see this means you can accurately measure your return on investment (ROI) 
  3. Audience reports to learn about visitors. Matomo’s powerful visitors feature lets you learn who is visiting your site, what their journey is and the steps they take to conversion.
  4. In depth view of behaviour with Funnels in Matomo. This tracks the journey of your visitors from the moment they enter your site, to when they leave. Giving you insight into where and why you lose your visitors.
  5. Custom reports. Where you create your unique reports to fit your business goals.

  Other benefits of using Matomo :

  • No data sampling which means you get 100% accurate reporting
  • 100% data ownership
  • Free Tag Manager
  • Search engine keyword rankings
  • Unlimited websites
  • Unlimited team members
  • GDPR manager
  • API access
  • Hosted on your own servers so you have full control over where your data is stored

  Learn more about the differences in this comprehensive table.

  

  Matomo Analytics for WordPress is free !

  Matomo Analytics is the best free Google Analytics alternative on the WordPress Directory. In addition to having comparable features where you can do pretty much do everything you wanted to do in GA. Matomo Analytics for WordPress makes for an ethical choice because you can respect your visitor’s privacy, can become GDPR compliant, and maintain control over your own data.

  Google Analytics leads the market for good reasons. It’s a great free tool for those who want analytics, but there’s no clarity when it comes to grey areas like privacy and data ownership. If these are major concerns for you, Matomo offers complete peace of mind that you’re doing the best you can to stay ethical while growing your business and website.

  It’s just as easy to install in a few click !

  Install and see for yourself !

• Multi-Site Management (Quick-Start Guide)

  18 juillet 2024, par Erin

  Do you run multiple websites ?

  Or, you’re expanding from one to two sites ?

  Multi-site management isn’t an easy task.

  While there are dozens of reasons why you may need to operate several sites, like brick and mortar stores opening new locations in different regions, you need to ensure you’re following the right strategies so you remain successful.

  So, how do you actually manage multiple websites at the same time without spreading yourself thin ?

  Using a single dashboard.

  In this guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about managing multiple sites in a single location at once so you can lead a successful digital strategy.

  What is multi-site management ?

  Multi-site management is the process of organising and operating multiple websites from a single location. It helps with congruent branding and improved productivity.

  Enterprise businesses that use multiple, language-specific versions of their site to target their audience in specific countries or regions can also benefit from managing their multiple sites from a single location. 

  

  By analysing a few websites at once, marketers and analysts can oversee a few different business websites without having to switch between multiple platforms and technologies.

  Whatever the reason is for managing multiple sites, multi-site management helps marketers and analysts establish a consistent brand presence, improve workflow efficiencies and scale operations.

  7 Benefits of multi-site management

  Multi-site management allows you to navigate and control a few websites all in one centralised location.

  

  Here are a few of the main benefits of multi-site management :

  1. Save time by reusing code between websites

  Saving time is the main benefit of multi-site management. Rather than managing websites from multiple platforms, logins and infrastructures, you can manage everything from one place.

  Multi-site management allows you to easily reuse core code, infrastructure and other digital assets from other sites all within one dashboard.

  So, when you need to update all of your websites, you can do it all at once in a fraction of the time.

  2. Improve productivity by having everything in one place

  How many tools do you currently use for your job on a daily basis ?

  Five ? Ten ?

  Now, imagine adding on another handful of tools, logins and technology for every site you manage.

  It’s a lot, especially if you’re managing dozens of logins, usernames and passwords.

  With multi-site management, you don’t need to have multiple login credentials. Everything’s all in one place and within one system.

  You don’t need to switch between multiple tools and platforms to get things done.

  The same strategy applies to your web analytics. If you want to streamline your productivity, make sure you’re tracking all of the data from your different websites in one place. Matomo lets you track multiple sites, domains and subdomains in one centralised location with the ‘All Websites’ dashboard which is a roll-up report. This is ideal for enterprises managing and analysing numerous sites.

  Try Matomo for Free

  Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.

  Start for free

  No credit card required

  3. Maintain brand image with consistent design across sites

  If you have multiple websites, subsidiaries or sister companies, it can take a great deal of effort to maintain branding consistency.

  But, if you’re leveraging a multi-site content management system, you can update your branding and design between all sites at the same time.

  If you need to make a change with your design, you don’t need to update each individual site with your new initiative. Instead, you can update multiple sites at once, allowing your visual branding to stay congruent, giving you uniformity in messaging.

  The result is an optimised user experience, which helps you increase trust with your audience, improve engagement and keep them coming back for years to come.

  4. Increase security through centralised management

  The greater your digital presence is, the more you can reach a wider range of people.

  But, there’s one downside : you expose yourself to more risk.

  Keeping multiple websites secure isn’t as easy to do if you’re leveraging dozens of different platforms and logins. 

  Instead, when you have all of your websites in one location, it can help you easily track every document. You can also control site versions for easy updates to prevent malicious attacks.

  5. Optimise scalability and flexibility

  If you plan on scaling your companies and digital presence, you need to ensure you’re able to do so without having to tear down your entire infrastructure or spend a ton of money upfront.

  For enterprise companies, multi-site management allows you to easily launch new regional sites as your company expands.

  Plus, if you have new product or marketing campaigns, you can simply add on microsites as needed by simply adding it to your current website lineup.

  This allows you to stay flexible in your marketing and growth strategies without adding extra risk or financial burden.

  6. Improve targeting and personalisation in marketing

  If you want to reach your audience better, but you’re managing multiple websites, it can be hard to not spread yourself too thin.

  But, if you’re managing a few websites in one place, it’s easier to track your audience’s interests, behaviour, wants and needs.

  By using a web analytics tool like Matomo to track the performance of multiple websites, you can see what’s resonating with your audience so you’re able to improve your targeting and offer personalised campaigns.

  Try Matomo for Free

  Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.

  Start for free

  No credit card required

  7. Streamline collaboration between team members

  Making your team juggle multiple platforms, websites and tools is a surefire way to give them a headache.

  Multi-site management is one of the best ways to bring your entire team into one centralised location so you can foster seamless collaboration without leaving your team confused or frustrated.

  By placing your entire website management in one place, markters, designers, developers, writers and other team members can collaborate effectively so you can get more done in less time.

  With multi-site management, you bring your entire team into a single location to work on your websites so you can speed up your content creation process, speed up problem solving and streamline communication.

  6 Best practices of multi-site management

  When you have multiple websites, you can expand your brand presence. But, one main problem arises : it becomes overwhelming for anyone managing them.

  Since each website comes with its own platform, login credentials and assets, it becomes incredibly difficult for developers, marketers and others to maintain the sites. And, if your sites aren’t looked after properly, you could end up with technical issues and branding inconsistencies, causing you to lose conversions and negatively impact the user experience.

  Thankfully, multi-site management can help you streamline your efforts, improve productivity and scale your business.

  But, before you dive into your multi-site management process, you need to ensure you implement the right strategy.

  

  Here are a few best practices to follow to succeed with multi-site management :

  1. Use a multi-site CMS

  If you want to manage multiple websites, you need to make sure you’re leveraging a CMS that offers multi-site management capabilities.

  A multi-site CMS allows you to make simple content, design or management changes simultaneously without having to switch between different systems.

  Here are a few examples of CMS’ that offer multi-site management :

  • WordPress
  • Sanity
  • Drupal

  2. Integrate a headless CMS

  One of the most versatile types of content management systems is what’s known as a “headless CMS.”

  This is a CMS that lets you disconnect the front end from the back end of your website management.

  Here are a few examples of headless (and open source) CMS’ :

  • Strapi
  • Directus
  • Ghost

  A headless CMS can help you add versatility in the way you present content across multiple sites. It uses an API to give you more flexibility so you can push content to websites as well as apps, etc.

  Using a headless CMS can help you improve page load times, website performance and user experience by simplifying your tech stack.

  3. Implement cross-domain and mult-isite Matomo analytics tracking

  If you want to track the website analytics data of multiple sites, you need to implement cross-domain tracking.

  The best way to do this is by leveraging a web analytics solution like Matomo. It lets you track the performance of multiple subdomains or websites.

  With Matomo, you get easy data grouping and data roll-up reporting for streamlined tracking.

  

  This means you can track the individual performance of each site or group them together to see the shared performance.

  4. Enable multiuser management

  If you’re working with different team members who need access to your CMS, then you should consider enabling multiuser management.

  This allows several people to work within your multi-site CMS and also gives you the ability to grant or restrict access to certain abilities within the platform.

  This is handy if you have a few different stakeholders working in your CMS.

  By enabling different user permissions and access, you can improve the security of your website and protect sensitive company information.

  5. Leverage composable content

  Creating a few different websites is a great way to increase your brand reach. But, it can be time-consuming having to continuously create and update content within multiple sites.

  That’s where composable content comes in.

  It allows you to create similar content between sites using pre-made “blocks.” Content blocks act as templates so you can quickly add similar content pieces to each site without having to start over from scratch each time.

  This speeds up productivity for your designers, writers and editors and keeps brand image consistent across different sites.

  6. Use version control

  What happens if you update all of your websites with a redesign, but it flops ?

  Well, rather than having to tear it all down and redesign your site infrastructure, you can leverage version control to restore your website to a previous version.

  Version control is especially handy when you’re managing multiple sites at once and you have multiple team members working in your CMS.

  Version control is also helpful if you’re A/B testing different content. By saving previous versions of your websites, you can run tests to help you optimise your web performance. 

  For example, if you use Matomo’s A/B testing feature to experiment with different landing page designs for a lead magnet, but find that your previous version performed better, you can simply restore your websites to a previous version in seconds.

  Track web analytics for multiple websites with Matomo

  If you’re looking to expand your digital presence, then creating new websites is one of the best ways to grow your brand.

  Multi-site management can help you save time, improve productivity and maintain a consistent brand image across your empire.

  One challenge of multi-site management is tracking the performance of your websites.

  That’s where Matomo has you covered.

  Matomo is a privacy-friendly web analytics tool that collects, stores, and tracks data across multiple websites and subdomains, allowing you to improve your performance. 

  With over 1 million websites using Matomo, you can rely on it for accurate data without sampling, ensuring compliance with privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA. 

  Matomo is especially beneficial for enterprises. It offers advanced roll-up reporting, enabling you to see the performance of multiple websites in one centralised dashboard. This feature, along with heatmaps, session recordings, and A/B testing, provides deeper insights into your website performance.

  Discover how Matomo can transform your web analytics with a demo. Request your demo now.

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• Data Privacy Regulations : Essential Knowledge for Global Business

  6 mars, par Daniel Crough

  If you run a website that collects visitors’ data, you might be violating privacy regulations somewhere in the world. At last count, over 160 countries have privacy laws — and your customers in those countries know about them.

  A recent survey found that 53% of people who answered know about privacy rules in their country and want to follow them. This is up from 46% two years ago. Furthermore, customers increasingly want to buy from businesses they can trust with their data.

  That’s why businesses must take data privacy seriously. In this article, we’ll first examine data privacy rules, why we need them, and how they are enforced worldwide. Finally, we’ll explore strategies to ensure compliance and tools that can help.

  What are data privacy regulations ?

  Let’s first consider data privacy. What is it ? The short answer is individuals’ ability to control their personal information. That’s why we need laws and rules to let people decide how their data is collected, used, and shared. Crucially, the laws empower individuals to withdraw permission to use their data anytime.

  The UNCTAD reports that only 13 countries had data protection laws or rules before the 2000s. Many existed before businesses could offer online services, so they needed updating. Today, 162 national laws protect data privacy, half of which emerged in the last decade.

  Why is this regulation necessary ?

  There are many reasons, but the impetus comes from consumers who want their governments to protect their data from exploitation. They understand that participating in the digital economy means sharing personal information like email addresses and telephone numbers, but they want to minimise the risks of doing so.

  Data privacy regulation is essential for :

  • Protecting personal information from exploitation with transparent rules and guidelines on handling it securely.
  • Implementing adequate security measures to prevent data breaches.
  • Enforcing accountability for how data is collected, stored and processed.
  • Giving consumers control over their data.
  • Controlling the flow of data across international borders in a way that fully complies with the regulations.
  • Penalising companies that violate privacy laws.

  Isn’t it just needless red tape ?

  Data breaches in recent years have been one of the biggest instigators of the increase in data privacy regulations. A list of the top ten data breaches illustrates the point.

  #	Company	Location	Year	# of Records	Data Type
  1	Yahoo	Global	2013	3B	user account information
  2	Aadhaar	India	2018	1.1B	citizens’ ID/biometric data
  2	Alibaba	China	2019	1.1B	users’ personal data
  4	LinkedIn	Global	2021	700M	users’ personal data
  5	Sina Weibo	China	2020	538M	users’ personal data
  6	Facebook	Global	2019	533M	users’ personal data
  7	Marriott Int’l	Global	2018	500M	customers’ personal data
  8	Yahoo	Global	2014	500M	user account information
  9	Adult Friend Finder	Global	2016	412.2M	user account information
  10	MySpace	USA	2013	360M	user account information

  And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Between November 2005 and November 2015, the US-based Identity Theft Resource Center counted 5,754 data breaches that exposed 856,548,312 records, mainly in that country.

  It’s no wonder that citizens worldwide want organisations they share their personal data with to protect that data as if it were their own. More specifically, they want their governments to :

  • Protect their consumer rights
  • Prevent identity theft and other consumer fraud
  • Build trust between consumers and businesses
  • Improve cybersecurity measures
  • Promote ethical business practices
  • Uphold international standards

  Organisations using personal data in their operations want to minimise financial and reputational risk. That’s common sense, especially when external attacks cause 68% of data breaches.

  The terminology of data privacy

  With 162 national laws already in place, the legal space surrounding data privacy grows more complex every day. Michalsons has a list of different privacy laws and regulations in force in significant markets around the world.

  Fortunately, there’s plenty of commonality for two reasons : first, all countries want to solve the same problem ; second, those drafting the legislation have adopted much of what other countries have already developed. As a result, the terminology remains almost the same, even when the language changes.

  These are the core concepts at play :

  Term	Definition
  Access and control	Consumers can access, review, edit and delete their data
  Data protection	Organisations must protect data from being stolen or compromised
  Consumer consent	Consumers can grant and withdraw or refuse access to their data
  Deletion	Consumers can request to have their data erased
  Data breach	When the security of data has been compromised
  Data governance	The management of data within an organisation
  Double opt-in	Two-factor authentication to add a layer of confirmation
  GDPR	Governing data privacy in Europe since 2016
  Personally identifiable information (PII)	Data used to identify, locate, or contact an individual
  Pseudonymisation	Replace personal identifiers with artificial identifiers or pseudonyms
  Publicly available information	Data from official sources, without restrictions on access or use
  Rectification	Consumers can request to have errors in their data corrected

  Overview of current data privacy legislation

  Over three-quarters of the world has formulated and rolled out data privacy legislation — or is currently doing so. Here’s a breakdown of the laws and regulations you can expect to find in most significant markets worldwide.

  Europe

  Thoughts of protecting data privacy first occurred in Europe when the German government became concerned about automated data processing in 1970. A few years later, Sweden was the first country to enact a law requiring permits for processing personal data, establishing the first data protection authority.

  General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

  Sweden’s efforts triggered a succession of European laws and regulations that culminated in the European Union (EU) GDPR, enacted in 2016 and enforced from 25 May 2018. It’s a detailed and comprehensive privacy law that safeguards the personal data and privacy of EU citizens.

  The main objectives of GDPR are :

  • Strengthening the privacy rights of individuals by empowering them to control their data.
  • Establishing a uniform data framework for data privacy across the EU.
  • Improving transparency and accountability by mandating businesses to handle personal data responsibly and fully disclose how they use it.
  • Extending the regulation’s reach to organisations external to the EU that collect, store and process the data of EU residents.
  • Requiring organisations to conduct Protection Impact Assessments (PIAs) for “high-risk” projects.

  ePrivacy Regulation on Privacy and Electronic Communications (PECR)

  The second pillar of the EU’s strategy to regulate the personal data of its citizens is the ePrivacy Regulation on Privacy and Electronic Communications (EU PECR). Together with the GDPR, it will comprise data protection law in the union. This regulation applies to :

  • Providers of messaging services like WhatsApp, Facebook and Skype
  • Website owners
  • Owners of apps that have electronic communication components
  • Commercial direct marketers
  • Political parties sending promotional messages electronically
  • Telecommunications companies
  • ISPs and WiFi connection providers

  The EU PECR was intended to commence with GDPR on 25 May 2018. That didn’t happen, and as of January 2025, it was in the process of being redrafted.

  EU Data Act

  One class of data isn’t covered by GDPR or PECR : internet product-generated data. The EU Data Act provides the regulatory framework to govern this data, and it applies to manufacturers, suppliers, and users of IoT devices or related services.

  The intention is to facilitate data sharing, use, and reuse and to facilitate organisations’ switching to a different cloud service provider. The EU Data Act entered into force on 11 January 2024 and is applicable from September 2025.

  GDPR UK

  Before Brexit, the EU GDPR was in force in the UK. After Brexit in 2020, the UK opted to retain the regulations as UK GDPR but asserted independence to keep the framework under review. It’s part of a wider package of reform to the data protection environment that includes the Data Protection Act 2018 and the UK PECR.

  In the USA

  The primary federal law regarding data privacy in the US is the Privacy Act of 1974, which has been in revision for some time. However, rather than wait for the outcome of that process, many business sectors and states have implemented their own measures.

  Sector-specific data protection laws

  This sectoral approach to data protection relies on a combination of legislation, regulation and self-regulation rather than governmental control. Since the mid-1990s, the country has allowed the private sector to lead on data protection, resulting in ad hoc legislation arising when circumstances require it. Examples include the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988, the Cable Television Protection and Competition Act of 1992 and the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

  

  California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)

  California was the first state to act when federal privacy law development stalled. In 2018, it enacted the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) to protect and enforce Californians’ rights regarding the privacy of their personal information. It came into force in 2020.

  California Privacy Act (CPRA)

  In November of that same year, California voters approved the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA). Billed as the strongest consumer privacy law ever enacted in the US, CPRA works with CCPA and adds the best elements of laws and regulations in other jurisdictions (Europe, Japan, Israel, New Zealand, Canada, etc.) into California’s personal data protection regime.

  Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (CDPA)

  In March 2021, Virginia became the next US state to implement privacy legislation. The Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (VCDPA), which is also informed by global legislative developments, tries to strike a balance between consumer privacy protections and business interests. It governs how businesses collect, use, and share consumer data.

  Colorado Privacy Act (CPA)

  Developed around the same time as VCDPA, the Colorado Privacy Act (CPA) was informed by that law and GDPR and CCPA. Signed into law in July 2021, the CPA gives Colorado residents more control over their data and establishes guidelines for businesses on handling the data.

  Other states generally

  Soon after, additional states followed suit and, similar to Colorado, examined existing legislation to inform the development of their own data privacy laws and regulations. At the time of writing, the states with data privacy laws at various stages of development were Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Montana, New York, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah.

  By the time you read this article, more states may be doing it, and the efforts of some may have led to laws and regulations coming into force. If you’re already doing business or planning to do business in the US, you should do your own research on the home states of your customers.

  Globally

  Beyond Europe and the US, other countries are also implementing privacy regulations. Some were well ahead of the trend. For example, Chile’s Law on the Protection of Private Life was put on the books in 1999, while Mauritius enacted its first Data Protection Act in 2004 — a second one came along in 2017 to replace it.

  Canada

  The regulatory landscape around data privacy in Canada is as complicated as it is in the US. At a federal government level, there are two laws : The Privacy Act for public sector institutions and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) for the private sector.

  PIPEDA is the one to consider here. Like all other data privacy policies, it provides a framework for organisations handling consumers’ personal data in Canada. Although not quite up to GDPR standard, there are moves afoot to close that gap.

  The Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2022 (aka Bill C-27) is proposed legislation introduced by federal agencies in June 2022. It’s intended to align Canada’s privacy framework with global standards, such as GDPR, and address emerging digital economy challenges. It may or may not have been finalised when you read this.

  At the provincial level, three of Canada’s provinces—Alberta, British Columbia, and Quebec—have introduced laws and regulations of their own. Their rationale was similar to that of Bill C-27, so they may become redundant if and when that bill passes.

  Japan

  Until recently, Japan’s Act on the Protection of Personal Information (APPI) was considered by many to be the most comprehensive data protection law in Asia. Initially introduced in 2003, it was significantly amended in 2020 to align with global privacy standards, such as GDPR.

  APPI sets out unambiguous rules for how businesses and organisations collect, use, and protect personal information. It also sets conditions for transferring the personal information of Japanese residents outside of Japan.

  

  China

  The new, at least for now, most comprehensive data privacy law in Asia is China’s Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL). It’s part of the country’s rapidly evolving data governance framework, alongside the Cybersecurity Law and the Data Security Law.

  PIPL came into effect in November 2021 and was informed by GDPR and Japan’s APPI, among others. The data protection regime establishes a framework for protecting personal information and imposes significant compliance obligations on businesses operating in China or targeting consumers in that country.

  Other countries

  Many other nations have already brought in legislation and regulations or are in the process of developing them. As mentioned earlier, there are 162 of them at this point, and they include :

  Argentina	Costa Rica	Paraguay
  Australia	Ecuador	Peru
  Bahrain	Hong Kong	Saudi Arabia
  Bermuda	Israel	Singapore
  Brazil	Mauritius	South Africa
  Chile	Mexico	UAE
  Colombia	New Zealand	Uruguay

  Observant readers might have noticed that only two countries in Africa are on that list. More than half of the 55 countries on the continent have or are working on data privacy legislation.

  It’s a complex landscape

  Building a globalised business model has become very complicated, with so much legislation already in play and more coming. What you must do depends on the countries you plan to operate in or target. And that’s before you consider the agreements groups of countries have entered into to ease the flow of personal data between them.

  In this regard, the EU-US relationship is instructive. When GDPR came into force in 2016, so did the EU-US Privacy Shield. However, about four years later, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) invalidated it. The court ruled that the Privacy Shield didn’t adequately protect personal data transferred from the EU to the US.

  The ruling was based on US laws that allow excessive government surveillance of personal data transferred to the US. The CJEU found that this conflicted with the basic rights of EU citizens under the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights.

  A replacement was negotiated in a new mechanism : the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. However, legal challenges are expected, and its long-term viability is uncertain. The APEC Privacy Framework and the OECD Privacy Framework, both involving the US, also exist.

  

  Penalties for non-compliance

  Whichever way you look at it, consumer data privacy laws and regulations make sense. But what’s really interesting is that many of them have real teeth to punish offenders. GDPR is a great example. It was largely an EU concern until January 2022 when the French data protection regulator hit Google and Facebook with serious fines and criminal penalties.

  Google was fined €150M, and Facebook was told to pay €60M for failing to allow French users to reject cookie tracking technology easily. That started a tsunami of ever-larger fines.

  The largest so far was the €1.2B fine levied by the Irish Data Protection Commission on Meta, the owner of Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. It was issued for transferring European users’ personal data to the US without adequate data protection mechanisms. This significant penalty demonstrated the serious financial implications of non-compliance.

  These penalties follow a structured approach rather than arbitrary determinations. The GDPR defines an unambiguous framework for fines. They can be up to 4% of a company’s total global turnover in the previous fiscal year. That’s a serious business threat.

  What should you do ?

  For businesses committed to long-term success, accepting and adapting to regulatory requirements is essential. Data privacy regulations and protection impact assessments are here to stay, with many national governments implementing similar frameworks.

  However, there is some good news. As you’ve seen, many of these laws and regulations were informed by GDPR or retrospectively aligned. That’s a good place to start. Choose tools to handle your customer’s data that are natively GDPR-compliant.

  For example, web analytics is all about data, and a lot of that data is personal. And if, like many people, you use Google Analytics 4, you’re already in trouble because it’s not GDPR-compliant by default. And achieving compliance requires significant additional configuration.

  A better option would be to choose a web analytics platform that is compliant with GDPR right off the bat. Something like Matomo would do the trick. Then, complying with any of the tweaks individual countries have made to the basic GDPR framework will be a lot easier—and may even be handled for you.

  Privacy-centric data strategies

  Effective website data analysis is essential for business success. It enables organisations to understand customer needs and improve service delivery.

  But that data doesn’t necessarily need to be tied to their identity — and that’s at the root of many of these regulations.

  It’s not to stop companies from collecting data but to encourage and enforce responsible and ethical handling of that data. Without an official privacy policy or ethical data collection practices, the temptation for some to use and abuse that data for financial gain seems too great to resist.

  

  Cookie usage and compliance

  There was a time when cookies were the only way to collect reliable information about your customers and prospects. But under GDPR, and in many countries that based or aligned their laws with GDPR, businesses have to give users an easy way to opt out of all tracking, particularly tracking cookies.

  So, how do you collect the information you need without cookies ? Easy. You use a web analytics platform that doesn’t depend wholly on cookies. For example, in certain countries and when configured for maximum privacy, Matomo allows for cookieless operation. It can also help you manage the cookie consent requirements of various data privacy regulations.

  Choose the right tools

  Data privacy regulations have become a permanent feature of the global business landscape. As digital commerce continues to expand, these regulatory frameworks will only become more established. Fortunately, there is a practical approach forward.

  As mentioned several times, GDPR is considered by many countries to be a particularly good example of effective data privacy regulation. For that reason, many of them model their own legislation on the EU’s effort, making a few tweaks here and there to satisfy local requirements or anomalies.

  As a result, if you comply with GDPR, the chances are that you’ll also comply with many of the other data privacy regulations discussed here. That also means that you can select tools for your data harvesting and analytics that comply with the GDPR out of the box, so to speak. Tools like Matomo.

  Matomo lets website visitors retain full control over their data.

  Before deciding whether to go with Matomo On-premise or the EU-hosted cloud version, why not start your 21-day free trial ? No credit card required.