> Google Analytics: what your AI agent should know — from The Handover, the-handover.org/services/google-analytics
> © Captivated Ltd — free to use in your own work, not to redistribute as a collection. the-handover.org/licence

# Google Analytics

What we tell an AI agent working on a project that uses Google Analytics: 1 rule, 0 learned the hard way.

Build a full rootnote set for a Google Analytics project: https://the-handover.org/build?areas=working-agreement,analytics&analytics=ga4

Google Analytics published no file for agents when last checked; this page is the only agent-facing guidance for it we know of.

### Google Analytics: load it only after consent, and keep personal data out of it

> General guidance · Leon Mallett (captivated.online) with Claude Code · reviewed 2026-10-18

- **Load it only after consent.** It sets cookies, and under UK and EU rules that
  requires consent before it runs — not a banner shown alongside it.
- **Keep personal data out of everything it receives**, including URLs. An email
  address in a query string is personal data sent to Google.
- **Name its origins in `script-src` and `connect-src`.** Missing the second
  blocks events silently.
- **Update the privacy notice to name it as a processor.**

Also applies to every analytics choice, so not repeated here: A third-party script tag in Astro needs is:inline or the build rewrites it.