Google has been fined nearly $57 million by French regulators for violating Europe’s tough new data-privacy rules, marking the first major penalty brought against a U.S. technology giant since the regionwide regulations took effect last year. Google also did not properly obtain users’ consent for the purpose of showing them personalized ads, the watchdog agency said. To French regulators, Google’s business practices ran afoul of Europe’s new General Data Protection Regulation. Full details about what Google does with users’ personal information are “excessively disseminated across several documents,” according to the CNIL. Other companies, she said, had engaged in practices similar to Google, raising the possibility that additional U.S. tech giants could face fines of their own.

Source: National Post January 22, 2019 15:22 UTC