Google Loses Appeal, Forced to Publish €150,000 Fine on Google.fr

Google lost a last-minute appeal to French courts on Friday, and was forced to display a huge, 13-point text block on its otherwise sterile Google.contemporary lightingfr webpage for 48 hours.The text within the block – for those who don't speak French and/or are too lazy to Google Translate the page – refers to the €150,000 fine Google will have to pony up for violating French data collection laws.Google unveiled a universal privacy policy across all of its services in 2012, designed to address how the company uses and shares user data across all of its various platforms. A coordinated action by European regulators from various countries found that this new privacy policy violated European privacy law. Regulators asked Google to make changes; Google seemingly did not. Therefore, various countries have taken it upon themselves to take Google to task for violation of their individual data protection laws.In the case of France, the country's Commissions Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) in January came to the conclusion that Google did "not comply with several provisions of the French Data Protection Act." As a result, the committee fined Google the aforementioned €150,000 and demanded that the company publish a communication on its website to inform users about the committee's decision.

"This publicity measure is justified by the extent of Google's data collection, as well as by the necessity to inform the persons concerned who are not in a capacity to exercise their right," reads a January statement from CNIL.modern lightingGoogle on Thursday asked France's highest administrative court to suspend CNIL's order requiring Google to publicize the fine on its website, arguing that the paragraph notice – demanded by CNIL to be of a font size no smaller than 13 points and located directly beneath the search bar on Google's primary French website – would cause its reputation to be "irreparably damaged." Additionally, argued Google, the company shouldn't have to publish the announcement while it appeals CNIL's decision.As you might expect, France's Conseil d'état disagreed. Google, therefore, had to publish the notice while it continues its appeal —a move that could take up to six months for the French court to figure out.Google is also in the midst of appealing a €900,000 fine in Spain related to data privacy, and it might ultimately face more legal scrutiny (and fines) from regulators in Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom related to its data privacy practices.knives wholesaler