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Comment by calibas | Hacker News Reader

If I understand this correctly, the issue isn't Google Analytics specifically, but "because it transfers users’ data to the USA, which is a country without an adequate level of data protection".

So this could also apply to any company that sends PII to the USA?

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At present, there is no legal basis for a company covered by the GDPR to send personal data to the US or a US-owned company. The US needs to repeal the CLOUD Act, and maybe one or two other things, in order to make this situation work again.

Is that for US- or Italian-based users? What if this is an Italian company running a global website with data from non-GDPR country users?

GDPR covers EU citizens. I don't think it says anything about non-EU citizens.

Which is nebulous: someone whose grandad was Italian living their whole life in the US might be a defacto EU citizen.

No such thing as a de facto citizen; a de facto citizen is also known as a refugee.

There is nothing in the GDPR about citizenship. GDPR applies to "data subjects who are in the Union" Art 3(2). So it is the physical location of the person that matters. As a US citizen, if you travel to an EU country on vacation then the GDPR applies to you while you are there.

GDPR also applies to EU based companies for all of their activities - so in addition to limiting US business in the EU, it limits EU businesses in the US.

If it is physical location, that is something you cannot possibly know for a user, due to VPNs. You might know that a person is logged in and registered with a US address, but you don't know if they are traveling (they might even VPN via the US because it is convenient for work).

So I guess you need to assume this applies for all visitors.

I think that's correct; and I suspect it was intentional.

I strongly disapprove of extraterritorial legislation (a US specialty). But in the case of the GDPR, if you want to regulate internet activity, then you more-or-less have to go extraterritorial.

No, it covers companies and individuals operating within GDPR jurisdiction. A US company that trades in the EU is subject to the GDPR. This is no different from applying the UK Trades Descriptions Act to US companies that advertise in the UK.

You can find the scope of the GDPR in Article 3 of the GDPR: https://gdpr-info.eu/art-3-gdpr/

Read these as individual clauses; the Regulation applies if any one of them is met. An Italian company serving customers anywhere in the world is covered by the first clause.

Any company that sends personal data to the USA, yes.

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