The cause of alleged violations of data protection by website operators and online retailers is spreading. Now, with the Salzburg lawyer Peter Harlander, the second lawyer has already reacted to the warning letters from the Lower Austrian lawyer Marcus Hohenecker: Harlander has submitted a statement of facts to the public prosecutor’s office, as he announced yesterday, Monday. Graz lawyer Harald Christandl Hohenecker reported suspected fraud last week.
As reported, the case is about fonts from the US group Google, so-called fonts. These help companies build websites. Google doesn’t ask for any money, but in return the IP addresses of the visitors are transmitted to the Internet company when these fonts are loaded. According to the EU General Data Protection Regulation, this has only been permitted since 2018 with the consent of the user – unless operators load fonts on their own servers in advance.
This leads Hohenecker to the meeting and sends website operators letters in which he accuses them of violating data protection and demands a fine of 190 euros. According to observers, more than 10,000 such letters have been sent in Austria so far.
Automated access?
Harlander represents more than 100 affected companies and associations. There is a suspicion that websites were only initially searched for manually and then switched to an automated process. However, if there is no human access, there is no data breach, according to Harlander. “This raises the suspicion of serious commercial fraud or serious commercial extortion.”
Hohenecker, on the other hand, believes that lawyers would court the recipients of the warning letters and hope for business. He is relaxed about the complaint and the disciplinary proceedings at the Lower Austrian Bar Association.
Source: Nachrichten
