- Flash flooding kills three in northern Thailand
- Kaur leads India to victory over Pakistan in Women's T20 World Cup
- Juventus held by Cagliari after late penalty drama
- In France's Marseille, teen 'stabbed 50 times' then burned alive
- Ruthless Gauff beats Muchova in straight sets to win China Open
- India restrict Pakistan to 105-8 in Women's T20 World Cup
- England target repeat of Pakistan Test whitewash
- Penrith Panthers win fourth straight NRL title after downing Storm
- Weary Sinner happy for day off after battling into Shanghai last 16
- Pakistan's Masood warns England still a force without Stokes
- Madrid's Carvajal to miss several months after serious knee injury
- Israel pounds Lebanon ahead of Hamas attack anniversary
- Two elephants die in flash flooding in northern Thailand
- Sabalenka targets world number one and Wuhan hat-trick
- Toddler among 4 dead in migrant Channel crossings
- Tunisia votes with Saied set for re-election
- Bagnaia sets 'example' with Japan MotoGP win to cut gap on Martin
- Intense Israeli bombing rocks Beirut ahead of war anniversary
- Mozambique vote: no suspense but some disillusion
- Austrian rapper channels anti-racist rage in Romani hip-hop songs
- Ohtani magic powers Dodgers over Padres in MLB playoff thriller
- Five of the best: Pakistan-England Test thrillers
- Man sets arm on fire as marches across US mark Gaza war anniversary
- Vietnam's young coffee entrepreneurs brew up a revolution
- Trump rallies at site of failed assassination: 'Never quit'
- Too hot by day, Dubai's floodlit beaches are packed at night
- Is music finally reckoning with #MeToo?
- Fans hail Trump's 'guts' as he returns to site of rally shooting
- Lebanon state media says 'very violent' Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Guardians maul Tigers, miracle Mets rally in MLB series openers
- Lebanon state media says Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Miami on track for MLS record points after win in Toronto
- Madrid beat Villarreal but Carvajal suffers knee injury
- Madrid beat Villarreal to move level with Liga leaders Barcelona
- Monaco take top spot in Ligue 1 with win at Rennes
- French rugby player on rape charge whistled but 'serene' on return
- Madrid beat Villarreal to level Liga leaders Barca
- Thuram treble fires Inter past Torino and up to second
- 'Fight': defiant Trump jets in to site of rally shooting
- Toddler among 3 dead in migrant Channel crossings
- Mexico City's new mayor sworn in with pledges on water, housing
- Israel on alert ahead of Hamas attack anniversary
- Guardians maul Tigers in MLB playoff series opener
- Macron criticises Israel on Gaza, Lebanon operations
- French rugby player whistled but 'serene' on return amid ongoing rape case
- Kovacic stars as Man City sink Fulham to get title bid back on track
- Retegui hat-trick fires five-star Atalanta to hammering of Genoa
- Heavyweights Australia, England off to World Cup winning starts
- Visiting UN refugee agency chief decries 'terrible crisis' in Lebanon
- Spinners come to party as England defeat Bangladesh at T20 World Cup
'Don't be Google': The rise of privacy focused startups
Google once used the slogan "don't be evil" to distinguish itself from its competitors, but now a growing number of pro-privacy startups are rallying to the mantra "don't be Google".
They are taking on Google Analytics, a product used by more than half of the world's websites to understand people's browsing habits.
"Google made a lot of good tools for a lot of people," says Marko Saric, a Dane living in Belgium who set up Plausible Analytics in Estonia in 2019.
"But over the years they changed their approach without really thinking what is right, what is wrong, what is evil, what is not."
Saric and many others are benefitting from GDPR, a European privacy regulation introduced in 2018 to control who can access personal data.
Last week, France followed Austria in declaring Google's practice of transferring personal data from the EU to its US servers was illegal under GDPR because the country does not have adequate protections.
Google disagrees, saying the data is anonymised and the scenarios envisaged in Europe are hypothetical.
Nevertheless, startups see an opening in a true David vs Goliath battle.
"The week that Google Analytics was ruled illegal by the Austrian DPA (data protection authority) was a good week for us," says Paul Jarvis, who runs Fathom Analytics from his home in Vancouver Island, Canada.
He says new subscriptions tripled over that week, though he does not give exact numbers.
Google dominates the analytics market with 57 percent of all websites using its service, according to survey group W3Techs. The best-established privacy-focused tool, Matomo, accounts for one percent of websites.
The smaller players know they are not going to overturn Google's domination, rather their aim is to inject a bit of fairness and choice into the market.
- 'Behemoth' application -
The supercharging moment for pro-privacy software developers came in 2013 when former CIA contractor Edward Snowden revealed how US security agencies were engaged in mass surveillance.
"We already knew some of it," says Matomo founder Matthieu Aubry. "But when he came out, we had proof that we weren't just paranoid or making stuff up."
Snowden showed how the US National Security Agency, aided by a system of secret courts, was able to gather personal data from users of websites including Google, Facebook and Microsoft.
Snowden's revelations helped to solidify support across Europe for its new privacy regulation and inspired software developers to make privacy central to their products.
The first thing the startups have taken aim at is the sheer complexity of Google Analytics.
"You have 1,000 different dashboards and all this data, but it doesn't help you if you don't understand it," says Michael Neuhauser, who launched Fair Analytics last month.
Jarvis, who had previously trained people to use Google Analytics, describes it as a "behemoth".
Unlike Google, the privacy-focused products do not use cookies to track users around the web and offer a much simpler array of data, helping them to keep within the boundaries of GDPR.
And they all make this a key selling point on their websites.
- 'An alternative internet' -
But making a living from these tools is no mean feat.
Saric of Plausible and Jarvis of Fathom both sank time and money into their projects before they could pay themselves a wage.
Both firms still operate with a startup mentality -- tiny teams working remotely across countries having direct contact with clients.
Aubry, who founded Matomo in 2007 when he was in his early 20s, remembers being in a similar position.
"For a long time, we didn't even have a business around the project, it was pure community," says the Frenchman from his home in Wellington, New Zealand.
But he says his firm now has global reach and he wants to help create "an alternative internet" not dominated by big tech.
His peers are at a much earlier stage but they certainly agree with the sentiment.
Jarvis reckons anyone switching from a big tech product is "a win for privacy" and helps to create a fairer system.
But a huge barrier remains: Google can afford to offer its tools for free, whereas the smaller firms need clients to pay, even if just a few dollars a month.
The privacy-focused firms say it is time to overhaul our understanding of these transactions.
"All of these free products that we use and love, we're not paying for them with money, we're paying for them with data and privacy," says Jarvis.
"We charge money for our product because it's just a more honest business model."
S.F.Warren--AMWN