You deserve a life free from illegal surveillance and commercial exploitation of your data by Google. And you should be compensated for Google’s unprecedented privacy violations.
The Foundation finds Google’s disregard for its users’ privacy rights unacceptable and is therefore taking legal action against Google. The objective of the Action is to press Google to fundamentally change its practices so that it no longer violates users’ rights. In addition, the Foundation aims to secure financial compensation for Dutch consumers aggrieved by Google’s violations of their rights.
The Action is supported by Consumentenbond and directed against the Google entities Alphabet Inc., Google LLC, Google Ireland Limited, and Google Netherlands B.V.
More information about the Action, and what Google does wrong, can be found here. Amongst other things, Google’s business practices include:
- Unprecedented tracking of consumers’ behaviour and constant collection of users’ geolocation data and online activity, regardless of their stated preferences.
- Use of what are known as ‘dark patterns’: design techniques that manipulate users into taking actions that negatively impact their privacy rights, such as unknowingly granting access to their personal data;
- Aggregation of 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 support its advertising business; and
- Transfer of personal data to the United States without sufficient protection from surveillance by the American government.
Google claims to have obtained ‘consent’ for its business practices but consumers cannot possibly grasp what happens to their personal data. Google conducts its business practices such that consent from the persons whose data it assembles and controls is not reasonably possible or practical, and in fact does not occur.
The Foundation and Consumentenbond call on Aggrieved Parties to stand up for their rights and join the Action. For more information on who we represent and the applicable ‘no cure, no pay’ agreement, see here.