Frequently Asked Questions

Google’s business model is based on illegal, exploitative practices that violate consumers’ rights. Google goes to great lengths to collect as much of its users’ personal data as possible to support its advertising business, which in 2023 generated approximately USD 238 billion in revenue. Google’s outsized profits come at the expense of consumer privacy. Its practices constitute illegal surveillance and illegal exploitation of personal data, with an unknown impact on the personal lives of its users now and in the future. The Foundation finds Google’s disregard for its users’ privacy rights unacceptable and has therefore taken legal action against Google. The Action is supported by the Consumentenbond.

Google offers its services all over the world, not just in the Netherlands. So it is true that Google not only violates privacy rights in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, this type of collective action is limited to actions associated with the Netherlands. For this reason, the action only targets Google users in the Netherlands.

Google is the most dominant data company on earth, offering useful and practical products and services to the public. Google’s products and services, such as Google Search, Google Chrome, Gmail, Google Maps, and Android phones, are almost impossible to avoid. They have become an essential part of our daily lives. But that does not justify intrusive surveillance, which is exactly what Google’s business practices result in.

Google’s consumer tracking takes place on an unprecedented scale—collecting personal data from all consumers who use its ubiquitous products and services. This includes data on location and online activity, which Google collects regardless of selected preferences. Moreover, it uses what are known as ‘dark patterns’ or deceptive design techniques to nudge users towards the least privacy-centered option. Google aggregates the personal data it collects to build detailed profiles of consumers’ lives, which it uses to derive products and services it sells to third parties to feed its advertising business. Google also transfers personal data to the United States without sufficient protection from government surveillance.

Google claims that users like you have ‘consented’ to Google’s vast and intrusive collection of personal data, but this ‘consent’ is manufactured, not freely given, and has no legitimate basis in the law. Google conducts its business such that obtaining consent from consumers is impossible. Consumers cannot possibly grasp what Google does with their personal data.

All in all, the illegal ongoing surveillance and exploitation of its users’ personal data by Google violates their right to privacy and the democratic freedoms that they secure. Privacy and freedom from surveillance are long-established Dutch and European rights laid down in the law and constitute the basis for democratic rule. These fundamental rights preserve the freedom to live and develop independently without being tracked, watched, or manipulated.

Accordingly, Google acts unlawfully and in violation of Dutch and European consumer and data protection law. Specifically, Google’s practices violate applicable privacy laws (such as the Dutch General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)) and cookie laws. In addition, Google’s practices constitute an unfair trade practice: users are being misled and in any event not informed properly about Google’s actual practices. Also, Google has been unjustly enriched.

Visit ‘Our Action Against Google’ for more information.

Google must fundamentally change its practices so that it stops violating the rights of its users and no longer violates the law.

To do this, Google must do at least the following:

• drastically change its digital infrastructure by applying effective privacy by design. This means implementing specific technical and organizational measures in Google’s systems so that the processing of users’ personal data is limited to what is strictly necessary and otherwise meets the requirements of applicable laws and these measures put a stop to the illegal surveillance;
• stop misleading its users and inform them what specific data Google is collecting, what Google (and any third parties) are doing with it, and with whom Google is sharing all that information;
• establish a legitimate basis for processing personal data. Google currently makes it impossible for users to legally consent to its practices, including the commercial exploitation of their data. Users cannot possibly comprehend what Google does with their data. But at the same time, because of Google’s dominant position, users have virtually no choice but to use Google’s ubiquitous products and services; and
• stop transferring users’ personal data to the United States without sufficient safeguards against government surveillance.

Google provides services that almost all of us use on a daily basis, such as Google Maps to find our way around. The fact that a product is used daily is no excuse for ignoring consumers’ rights. On the contrary, it means that Google must take extra care of your data. It has a legal duty to comply with consumer rights. After all, data protection and privacy are fundamental rights. They do not have to be paid for. Google can perfectly well offer its services and get paid for them without violating these fundamental rights. For example, it can also offer ads that are not based on personal data.

Google has a duty of care to consumers to limit the processing of personal data to what is strictly necessary. This is also known as the data minimization obligation. It makes sense if you want to use Google Maps, for example, that Google needs data about your location to know where you are for the use of Google Maps. But Google often also uses that data for other purposes (like advertising), or collects location data for advertising outside of using Google Maps. Google collects far more data than strictly necessary to offer a product or service. Google is thus violating its data minimization obligation.

You are one of the Aggrieved Parties that the Foundation intends to protect if you have been subject to Google’s privacy violations involving the illegal collection, processing, storage or transfer of your personal data and you resided in the Netherlands (for a period of time) on or after 1 March 2012.

Google’s services and products include the following:

• A Google Account;
• Gmail;
• A smartphone with the Android operating system;
• Google Search;
• YouTube;
• Google Maps;
• Google Chrome;
• Google Drive;
• Google Docs;
• Google Translate;
• Google Play;
• Google Photos;
• A Google Chromebook;
• A Google Nest product;
• Google Pay; and
• A Fitbit.

You can sign up from the age of 16. Are you under 18 years old? Ask your parents/guardians for permission before you sign up. For the precise definition of Aggrieved Parties, see the Foundations’ Articles of Association.

The Foundation represents the interests of all consumers who have used a Google product or service from the Netherlands, at any point in time as of 1 March 2012. In its action, SMC represents the interest ofall natural persons residing in the Netherlands who used an Android smartphone after 25 May 2018.