On April 11th 2018 Google Announced changes to it’s Google Analytics Retention Controls (see: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/7667196). In light of the upcoming changes with Europe’s GDPR they have decided to make the changes platform wide and apply to you even if you aren’t operating in Europe.
Starting May 25th 2018 user and event data will be retained according to new “Retention Control” settings.
This means that you will need to set how long Google stores cookie related data on your site’s visitors on their servers. The options are:
- 14 months
- 26 months
- 38 months
- 50 months
- Do not automatically expire
If the GDRP doesn’t directly impact you (you operate outside of Europe and your customers are not in Europe) I would strongly urge you to select “Do Not Automatically Expire”.
This could impact your reporting after the retention period ends, and if you heavily rely on this data it’s important you note the changes and make some changes to your properties in Google Analytics.