Google Adtech Broadcasts Highly Sensitive User Data, GDPR Complaint Claims
A legal complaint alleges that Google and the IAB systematically broadcast highly intimate user inferences, such as medical conditions and political views, to thousands of companies through real-time ad auctions. Privacy advocates argue this pervasive data sharing violates GDPR rules.
Google's adtech infrastructure routinely assigns highly sensitive labels to Internet users, including categories for substance abuse, mental health, sexually transmitted diseases, and political affiliations. These intimate inferences stem from tracking user behavior online to serve targeted behavioral advertisements.
The real-time bidding (RTB) system broadcasts this deeply personal data to thousands of third-party companies during the ad auction process. Privacy advocates argue this mass data broadcast goes far beyond what is necessary to serve relevant ads and creates a pervasive surveillance mechanism that users cannot reasonably understand or consent to.
A coalition of privacy groups, including Brave and the Open Rights Group, files a GDPR complaint asserting there is no legal justification for this invasive profiling. They submit supplementary evidence showing official ad category lists from Google and the IAB to regulators in the UK, Ireland, and Poland to prove these systemic privacy breaches occur.