Q) Hi Stéphane, I haven't seen you for a long time :) How long will it take before the final decision on the legality or illegality of #GA? And will #Google offer the European data center then or sooner? A) From all the posts, reshares, comments and long threads on Measure Slack, we can sense that there is a bit of panic and a lot of extrapolation about the Austrian DSB's decision on GA data transfers to the US. As someone who has championed analytics for years and has now turned to a stronger #dataethics of #marketing, I think this decision may have huge implications not only for the future of GA, but for the web ecosystem in general. If, as many believe, this decision means that any US-based service is likely to fall under a similar scenario due to the sending of the IP address, it means that the impact is not just technical and legal, but also very political. This could be the first (or shall I say, continued?) battle in a cyber protectionism war between Europe and the United States. We can be sure that #Google will employ its army of lawyers and lobbyists to overturn this decision or influence any future decision. Other providers potentially impacted by this decision will not stand idly by either. That's the legal side of the issue. But a more logical approach would simply be to allow #GA4 owners to choose the location of the data center - just as is done for BigQuery and many other G services. Meanwhile, competing vendors are aggressively leveraging this decision. But before switching tools, tempting as it may be, a more diligent review of potential solutions should be conducted. There is a multiplication of cookie-free, privacy-by-default and by design solutions, but for the most part, they don't come close to offering the functionality of GA4 or are much more expensive. Not to mention finding people who actually know how to implement and use these solutions properly. The days of Avinash saying "Don't wait! Put the tracking on the site and get approval later" are long gone. My advice is not to panic, let the big boys fight their battle, because it will be a long time before a final decision is made in Europe. In the meantime, review your martech stack, make sure consent is fully implemented and done correctly, and if you're worried about risk mitigation, adopt a #NoConsentNoTracking philosophy of radical transparency, consent, and control - even for what you consider to be anonymous data or what you feel you have a legitimate right to collect. #privacy #digitalanalytics #digitalmarketing