Google’s Universal Analytics Shutting Down for Good on July 1

• Google is emailing users of its analytics products confirming that Universal Analytics will shut down as planned on July 1, 2024.
• After that date, UA data will no longer be accessible via the Google Analytics front end or through its API.
• Although Universal Analytics stopped tracking data in July 2023, many organizations still refer back to the old data for comparisons.
• After July 1 of this year, that will no longer be possible.
• If you want to save your historical UA data, it can be exported into Google’s BigQuery data warehousing service.
• Google has a help document to step you through this process, and this Medium article is also helpful.

You May be Violating the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) Without Knowing It

• The California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) protects California residents from privacy violations when communications are recorded without knowledge or consent.
• Passed in the 1990s to protect consumers against eavesdropping on phone conversations, the 9th Circuit Court has ruled that the law also applies to Internet communications.
• In the last 2 years, hundreds of class action lawsuits have been filed alleging that website analytics, session recording tools, chatbots, and tracking pixels violate CIPA.
• The recording of phone calls and Zoom calls also falls under this law, which applies if one party to the communication is a California resident, even if the business is not located in the state.
• To comply with CIPA, businesses must disclose the practice in their Privacy Policy, or obtain consent through other means.
• CIPA violations can result in fines of $2,500 to $10,000 per violation and up to a year in county jail.
• Read more about CIPA from Termageddon.
• Here are some additional helpful articles from law firms focused on the issue: BakerHostetler, JDSupra, and NixonPeabody.

Old School Hacking Tactics Still Plague WordPress Sites – How to Protect Your Clients

• What are some common old tactics that hackers still use successfully to compromise WordPress sites?
• Why is performing root cause analysis important when dealing with a hacked WordPress site, as opposed to just removing the malware and adding more security plugins?
• How can analyzing access logs help identify the source and methods used in a WordPress site compromise?
• What evidence in access logs distinguishes between a normal admin login and a hacker logging in with stolen credentials?
• Why do hackers sometimes intentionally logout of WordPress after compromising a site, and what traces does that remove?
• Get the answers to these questions and more in Thomas J. Raef’s recent article after performing a site cleanup.

Worth a Look

• ChatGPT can turn any screenshot into CSS and HTML. If you can design it, ChatGPT can code it. Look at these astonishing examples.
• Looking for WordPress lifetime deals? Check out The WPWeekly’s exhaustive list.
• Astra Theme Vulnerability affects millions of WordPress sites. They (silently) patched it, and didn’t disclose the actual vulnerability, nor its severity. Get the details from SearchEngineJournal.