Block Russia Data in AA

[rayhla]

Hi -  How do you block Russian data in Adobe analytics? We don't have a Russian server set up to collect data, so the direction is to disable tracking for all Russian IPs. 

We're using OneTrust to determine user location based on IP and have set up a rule in Launch to disable tracking when the user location value is "RU." We've tested this and confirmed it works as expected. However, Adobe Analytics reports are still showing "Russian Federation" values under the out-of-the-box dimension "Countries." We are utilizing global report suites for our reporting and not capturing any IP address (as per our data privacy regulation).

What further steps can we take to ensure that Russian data is fully blocked from our reports?

[bjoern__koth]

Hi @rayhla 

do you mean website traffic from Russia? If your stakeholder does not want Russian traffic altogether, maybe the website stack should not deliver content in the first place.

On Analytics, there is no built-in functionality that can drop traffic based on GeoIP country information.

Depending on your cookie consent tool, it could support GeoIP lookup information that is used to display different banner versions. I know of OneTrust CookiePro which API you can tap into to retrieve country information.

Can you specify what exactly you are trying to achieve?

[rayhla]

Hi @bjoern__koth thanks for your response. 

We’ve disabled our geo-site in Russia, but users there can still access the other geo-sites, so we want to ensure we’re not tracking them.

We’re using OneTrust to identify user locations based on IP and disable analytics tracking. However, we’re still seeing data from the "Russian Federation" in the reports under the OOB dimension "Countries." This is likely due to the different third-party tool (DigitalElement) being used by Adobe to identify user IPs, which we believe is why we’re still receiving this data.

[bjoern__koth]

Hi @rayhla 

can you elaborate how you block the analytics requests in combination with OneTrust? Assuming as Launch rule condition?

and when you say you're seeing Russian Federation, that is in the AA countries dimension?

[rayhla]

We have a data element that will return "true" if the OneTrust user location is 'RU,' and we use this as a condition in our tracking launch rules to prevent triggering if the data element returns true.

Yes, in Adobe Analytics, we have an out-of-the-box dimension called "Countries" that captures the 'Russian Federation' values.

[bjoern__koth]

Hmm ok, sounds like it works.

Have you validated your setup by adding the OneTrust test param to it?

?otgeo=ru

Does it confirm your setup?

Also note that depending on the geo IP service, there may be a margin of error, especially for people living close to the border, and a user in OneTrust may be located in a neighboring country, whereas the geo IP lookup in AA might place him in Russia. This should only affect a small group of people though.

When you look at the number of Russian Visitors, is the number big or rather small?

[rayhla]

Yes, we have confirmed it working as expected. 

The data in question is quite minimal (<1%), but for strict compliance, we need to exclude it from the reports and conduct regular data clean-up - which is why I’d like to know if anyone here has experience with blocking tracking for a specific country.

[bjoern__koth]

1% of the typical Russian traffic or overall traffic, just out of curiosity.

again, geoips are never 100% correct when getting close to the border. I saw the same in Switzerland where 20km into Switzerland visitors were identified as coming from France.

[rayhla]

1% of the overall traffic.

[Amruthesh_AG]

@rayhla In case if you are having Russian region IP addresses you can exclude by creating the IP filter.

In case if you are using Virtual Report Suites follow below steps.
Create a segment which will exclude Russian traffic data ex: Country equals Russian.

Go to Admin > Virtual Report Suites.

Select the suite where you want to block data.

In the segment definition, set a rule excluding traffic from Russian Geo-location (country).

Save and apply this segment to your report suite. attached screenshot.

If it solve your question Accept this solution.

[rayhla]

Hi @Amruthesh_AG - Thank you for your response.

We are not capturing IP as part of the Data Privacy regulation, and we are also not using a virtual report suite in this case.