€50 million fine for Google confirmed by French Court

Forced Consent & Consent Bypass Background. Following a complaint by noyb and a similar complaint by the French NGO “La Quadrature du Net” the CNIL (the French Data Protection Authority) imposed a 50 million euro fine on Google over the company’s opaque privacy policy and lack of legal basis for personalized ads. This is so far the highest fine adopted by a DPA as a final decision. Nevertheless it is well below the maximum fine under GDPR of 4% of the global turnover of Google (this would be € 3.7 billion). The CNIL’s decision focused mainly on two specific GDPR infringements: the lack of sufficient information on to the users and the lack of a legal basis for processing personal data for advertising purposes. Max Schrems, honorary chairman of noyb: “The amount is tiny for Google, but still an important symbol to show that GDPR fines can reach serious amounts". The decision was appealed by Google before the French Conseil d’Etat (the highest administrative court) on the grounds tha