Google answered Brave browser's Chief Policy and Industry Relations Officer Johnny Ryan GDPR regulatory complaint alerting European data protection authorities about a massive and ongoing data breach in a statement sent to Tom's Hardware.
The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is an EU law regulation regarding data protection and privacy, which applies to all individuals within the European Economic Area (EEA) and the European Union (EU).
Brave is an open source privacy oriented web browser designed to block web trackers and online ads, developed by Brave Software Inc, a company founded by Mozilla co-founder Brendan Eich.
Johnny Ryan posted a statement on Brave's website yesterday accusing Google and other advertising tech companies of sharing sensitive user data with hundreds of companies when web pages containing behavioral ads are visited.
According to Ryan, this type of tactics is used to organize virtual bids allowing advertising companies to direct the attention of website visitors on specific types of content they promote.
Google cites their ongoing commitment to applying EU's GDPR into all their products
"Our complaint should triggera EU-wide investigation in to the ad tech industry’s practices, using Article 62 of the GDPR," said Ryan. "The industry can fix this. Ads can be useful and relevant without broadcasting intimate personal data.”
In a statement sent to Tom's Hardware, a Google spokesperson said that "we build privacy and security into all our products from the very earliest stages and are committed to complying with the EU General Data Protection Regulation."
Furthermore, the representative mentioned Google's ongoing effort in providing web users with "meaningful data transparency and controls" spread out over all services provided by the company within the European Union, not failing to mention the probable cause of Brave's GDPR complaints, the search giant's personalized advertising business.
Brave's CPO also said that multiple complaints with the UK Information Commissioner and the Irish Data Protection Commissioner had been filed to alert European regulators of this data breach-like action Google and its ad tech partners have been involved in.
Furthermore, the complaints also call for a joint supervisory investigation by all European regulators, as regulated by under the Article 62 of the General Data Protection Regulation.
