App to Replace Google Analytics, GDPR-Compliant, and Cookie-free

by Rian

I wrote an op-ed recently on changing the analytics tool on The Mad Tea Party, and this is my app-to piece on what happened. Now, due to the nature of what GDPR and other privacy related regulations, there are a lot of grey areas. One thing I found while researching what to do with the website was that many tips and guides writers decided not to touch on GDPR subject, even though it has been around since 2018 or so.

There were three problems I wanted to tackle: a. the cost of operating should be lower than simply moving the website over to WordPress.com or any other blogging website, b. the new setup has to work globally, c. it needs to be prepared for future regulations from more countries. I believe the budgetary issue is obvious, but some might find first two points to be rather excessive. It isn’t. As I have written in the op-ed, depending on the plans and services CMPs provide, working with cookies to enable Google Analytics could easily become a money pit.

This is where Simple Analytics, or any other non-cookie based analytics tool come in. I can’t write the starring review for Simple Analytics. I was never a traffic analyst, let alone SEO analyst, and I wasn’t specialized in working with Google Analytics. For those who had used Google Analytics as the tool of the trade, Simple Analytics may not be enough. But it is certainly enough for hobbyists, blogs, and websites in terms of tools.

What I do wish to focus on is Simple Analytics’ approach to the problem. Privacy laws around the world have different mandates, and it’s becoming nearly impossible to keep up with all the global regulations. On Mad Tea Party, I see most traffic is from the U.S., where individual states are already enforcing different regulations, and second largest traffic comes from Europe, where the famous GDPR is enforced. South Korea is not on the list for any of the privacy regulations yet, but I suspect it will happen sooner or later. I cannot create or maintain popups for each and every cases when it happens. I was hoping for a free-tier solution, but it’s been 7 years without much notice. I’ve already discussed CMPs not accepting registration from Korean IPs; why should I believe their services can be held accountable?

The other problem is the cookie itself, in its technical limbo fighting against the current of being outdated. Around the time HTML5 was announced, there were well-observed speculations that cookies are about to become obsolete; considering cookie specification was released in 1994, cookie is indeed old. There is the sweet irony that we kicked Internet Explorer, released on the same year, to the curb for being old but not cookie. Although Google ultimately reversed course on the idea, it did consider depreciating third-party cookies on Chrome by end of 2024. We need a new tool built off of new specification, and Google seems to be, at the very least, aware of it.