Wave of complaints about Use of Google Fonts on Corporate Websites

Sept 9, 2022 Benn-Ibler Rechtsanwälte

Recently, numerous Austrian companies received a letter from a lawyer requesting them to accept a claim for damages and representation costs in the amount of EUR 190.00 based on their use of Google Fonts on their company website and to settle the claim in the law firm's account. In addition, claims for injunctive relief and a request for information pursuant to Art 15 DS-GVO (General Data Protection Regulation) were made in the letter.

Google Fonts is a directory of fonts offered by Google. These fonts can either be uploaded locally on the user's own server or alternatively (re)loaded via a Google server.

The Austrian Data Protection Authority (Datenschutzbehörde, DSB) has issued an opinion in this context, whereby no position is taken on whether the use of Google Fonts on a website does in fact violate the GDPR. The DSB's statement details the procedure for responding to a request for information under Art. 15 of the GDPR and explicitly refers to the obligation to respond under Art. 12 (3) of the GDPR. Furthermore, the statement says that the DSB has initiated an official investigation into Google regarding Google Fonts in order to resolve the matter.

In addition, the following steps are recommended:

• Check to see if Google Fonts are actually embedded on your company website.
• Check whether Google fonts are actually required.
• If Google fonts are embedded and required, check whether the fonts are (re)loaded from a Google server or embedded locally. Local integration is recommended.
• Check whether a connection to a Google server is established due to the embedding of Google fonts on your website. Document the results.

Irrespective of this specific warning letter currently being sent out, users are advised to check their websites for compliance with the GDPR.

The question of whether this claim for damages is justified cannot yet be answered conclusively due to the lack of any existing rulings.

For information provided by the Austrian DSB on the issue of the cease-and-desist letter regarding Google Fonts, as of 23 August 2022, go to

https://www.dsb.gv.at/download-links/bekanntmachungen.html#Google_Fonts.