Tightening privacy regimes around the world are forcing Google to change the way it tracks and measures web traffic across the majority of the globe’s estimated 100m sites on the open web. That’s forced Google’s Universal Analytics to be swapped out with an entirely new product knowns as GA4. The problem is it’s a mess for most. And it's a likely marker for what’s to come in Australia - companies in Europe, and even the US, are pulling out of Google'snear-ubiquitous [and once free] analytics platform as marketers fumble with new tools, unable to quickly pull key reports, historical comparisons and insights. Many are raging against the big Google data-swiping machine as European regulators enforcing stricter rules on how people’s data is used, stored and transferred and dishing out big fines over GDPR breaches. Some of the big questions hovering over Google’s new analytics products include whether they’re fully privacy compliant, particularly if Google is feeding its vast global advertising business via sample data carved out from website owner data, most of whom are only now discovering they don’t own or often see all their real audience behaviour. In France, about 80 per cent have reviewed their analytics, per Piano’s global analytics chief Marie Fenner, and “about 60 per cent” have switched". That scenario may soon repeat in Australia as data privacy rules are beefed-up. Scentre Group performance marketing lead Jason Elk thinks the shake-up threatens Google’s analytics dominance and by proxy its broader business. Matomo CRO Dion Blair, agrees. “Right now, unlike any time in the past 15 years, we're seeing the choice [businesses are making for analytics] is potentially not the big behemoth.” With Google shutting off Universal Analytics a few weeks ago, here’s what marketers locally and globally are likely to face. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.