Google is breaking EU law by sending users of its email service Gmail direct advertising messages, activists said in a complaint sent to French regulators on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
It is the latest in a long line of complaints filed by the activist group NOYB (None of Your Business), which has fought the tech giant for years on data privacy.<\/p>\n
The French data regulator CNIL has been among the most active in Europe, doling out huge fines against Google and Facebook in particular.<\/p>\n
The activist group provided screenshots to CNIL that showed marketing messages at the top of a user’s inbox.<\/p>\n
The messages were marked with a green box and the word “annonce”, French for advert.<\/p>\n
The group said under EU law, that kind of marketing was allowed only if users had consented.<\/p>\n
“Spam is a commercial email sent without consent. And it is illegal,” said NOYB lawyer Romain Robert in a statement.<\/p>\n
“Spam does not become legal just because it is generated by the email provider.”<\/p>\n
CNIL confirmed to AFP it had received the complaint.<\/p>\n
Google told AFP it had no comment as yet.<\/p>\n
Google and Facebook’s parent company Meta are at the centre of a long-running battle over their data-collection practices in Europe.<\/p>\n
The French regulator fined Google 150 million euros ($150 million) and Meta 60 million euros last December over their failure to provide users with an easy opt-out for cookies, files that track users around the web.<\/p>\n
The two firms also face scrutiny over their practice of sending the personal data of EU residents to servers in the United States.<\/p>\n
NOYB has filed dozens of cases with regulators across the bloc arguing that the practice is illegal.<\/p>\n
\n \u00a9 2022 AFP\n <\/p>\n
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\n Privacy activists target Google over French ‘spam’ emails (2022, August 24)
\n retrieved 22 February 2023
\n from https:\/\/techxplore.com\/news\/2022-08-privacy-activists-google-french-spam.html<\/p>\n
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