author: Bart Swiatek
Google Will Pay Fine, as French Court Upholds Ruling
Google will have to pay a fine of 50 million Euros for violating user privacy and improperly obtaining permission to display personalized ads. The ruling concerns a case from January, last year.
IN A NUTSHELL:
- The French Supreme Court has upheld the 50 million euro fine that was imposed on Google last January;
- The fine concerns breaches of user privacy and errors made when asking users whether to personalize their ads.
Reuters reports that the French Supreme Court has upheld a €50 million fine imposed on Google for violating user privacy and breaking current European law on the subject (the so-called GDPR). The company announced in a press release on Friday that it would consider changes in its policy.
“(The court) also notes that the information available is sometimes incomplete, in particular regarding the data retention period and the purposes of the various processing operations carried out by Google,” the judgment reads.
The judgment concerns a case from January last year when the French CNIL (Commission Nationale de l'informatique et des Libertés) deemed that Google did not provide users with sufficient clarity about how its search engine was collecting and using their data and did not ask for their consent to display personalized advertising.
“People expect to understand and control how their data is used, and we’ve invested in industry-leading tools that help them do both. This case was not about whether consent is needed for personalised advertising, but about how exactly it should be obtained. In light of this decision, we will now review what changes we need to make," the statement writes.
Interestingly, the penalty is the highest fine for this type of offense in history, although it's probably not a very large sum for the company that is Google.