Alphabet faces Austrian privacy complaint over alleged browser tracking

By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Alphabet's Google was the subject of a complaint from Austrian advocacy group NOYB on Thursday for allegedly tracking users of its Chrome web browser, an issue already on the radar of antitrust regulators. EU.

The US tech giant is phasing out the use of third-party cookies that advertisers use to track consumers to protect their privacy.

It introduced a set of tools called Privacy Sandbox to block covert tracking techniques and limit data sharing with third parties, while developers and publishers can measure ads without tracking individual users.

Chrome users are asked whether or not they want to enable the ad privacy feature to avoid being tracked.

NOYB (it's none of your business) said that this feature allows Google to track users in the browser and that the company should first ask users for consent, as required by EU privacy rules European.

“People thought they were agreeing to a privacy feature, but were tricked into agreeing to Google ad tracking. Consent must be informed, transparent and fair to be legal. Google did the exact opposite,” the founder said by NOYB, Max Schrems. statement.

The group filed a complaint with the Austrian data protection authority on Thursday.

NOYB has filed numerous complaints with European and national privacy watchdogs against large technology companies for alleged privacy violations.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; editing by Mark Potter)