Is Google Analytics illegal in Europe?

Not outright, but it's under active legal challenge. The Cologne District Court ruled in August 2025 that standard GA usage violates GDPR, and multiple EU data protection authorities have issued similar findings. Using GA4 without proper consent mechanisms carries real regulatory risk — GDPR fines exceeded EUR 7.1 billion cumulatively by end of 2025.

Can privacy analytics track conversions?

Yes. Plausible, Fathom, and Pulse all support custom event tracking and goal conversions without cookies. You can track form submissions, button clicks, and signups by firing events from your frontend code.

Which privacy analytics tool is easiest to set up?

Pulse requires a single line of HTML — just a script tag with your domain and the Pulse source URL. No npm packages, no build step, no configuration files. Plausible uses a nearly identical one-line setup. Fathom also uses a single script tag.

Do I still need a cookie banner with Pulse?

No. Pulse doesn't set any cookies — no first-party, no third-party, no session cookies. Because it doesn't use cookies, no consent is required under the ePrivacy Directive.

How accurate are cookieless analytics compared to Google Analytics?

In EU markets, cookieless analytics are more accurate than GA because they count every visitor, not just the 10-20% who accept cookies (SealMetrics, 2025). Unique visitor counts may differ slightly because privacy tools estimate sessions without persistent identifiers, but traffic trends and patterns remain reliable.