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 2022 generated approximately USD 240 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 unknown impact on personal lives of its users now and in future. The Foundation finds Google’s disregard for its users’ privacy rights unacceptable and is therefore taking legal action against Google. The Action is supported by Consumentenbond.

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. And that 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 users’ 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 surveillance by the American government.

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 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 AVG) 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.

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.

This means that we represent you if, at any time since 1 March 2012, you have used a Google service or product, including but not limited to any of 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;
• A Fitbit.

You can sign up from the age of 16. Are you not yet 18? Ask your parents/guardians for permission before you sign up. For the precise definition of Aggrieved Parties, see the Foundations’ Articles of Association.