Google has violated a European Union court ruling by sending spam advertising emails directly to the inbox of Gmail users, Austrian advocacy group noyb.eu said on Wednesday in a complaint brought to France’s data protection watchdog.
The Alphabet unit (GOOGL.O), whose revenues largely come from online advertising, should ask Gmail users for their prior approval before sending them any direct marketing emails, noyb.eu said, referring to a 2021 decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJUE).
While Google’s ad emails may resemble normal ones, they contain the word “Ad” in green letters on the left-hand side, underneath the subject of the email, noyb.eu said in its complaint. Also, they do not contain a date, the advocacy group added.
“It’s as if the postman was paid to remove the ads from your mailbox and put his own instead,” said Romain Robert, programme director at noyb.eu, citing Gmail’s anti-spam filters that place most unsolicited emails in a different folder.
Google failed to promptly respond to requests for comment. The CNIL spokesperson confirmed the authority had gotten the complaint and that it was being filed.
Vienna-based noyb.eu (None Of Your Business) picked out CNIL, among other national data privacy watchdogs, because it’s renowned for being one of the most forthright regulators within the EU, Robert said.
Buy Crypto NowWhile any CNIL decision would be only relevant in France, it could push Google to assess its practices in the region. Noyb.eu is an advocacy group founded by privacy activist and Austrian lawyer Max Schrems who won a high-profile privacy case at Europe’s top court in 2020.
The CNIL charged a record fine of 150 million euros ($149 million) on Google earlier in the year for making it difficult for internet users to block all online trackers.
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