Google fined by French government for violating privacy laws

CNIL, France’s data protection authority, has slapped Google with a €150,000 ($204,000) fine for violating European privacy laws. While $200,000 is nothing to Google, it’s still the largest fine that CNIL has ever levied. The regulator also ordered Google to put a notice on google.fr  about the decision.

The French data protection authority CNIL has fined Google €150,000 ($204,000) over its unified privacy policy, which regulators believe violates European privacy law. The EU data protection authorities are coordinating their anti-Google efforts – Spain became the first to levy a fine last month, relieving the company of $1.2 million. In a statement on Wednesday, CNIL said Google’s merging of its various services’ privacy policies into a unified policy was in itself legal, but the way in which it implemented that unified policy was not legal.