The Graz lawyer Harald Christandl reacted to the mass warning letters from the Lower Austrian lawyer Marcus Hohenecker: He reported his colleagues to the public prosecutor’s office in Graz on suspicion of fraud. The presumption of innocence applies to Hohenecker.
As the OÖN reported on Wednesday, the new wave of dunning letters has caused a great deal of anger among Upper Austrian companies. The Upper Austrian Chamber of Commerce, which has received hundreds of inquiries, now wants to provide legal assistance in the event of a lawsuit and is examining other options for lawsuits:
That’s how the lawsuit came about
A client of Christandl should pay 190 euros in damages, reports the courier. Your website violates the General Data Protection Regulation. After all, she uses Google fonts. If these fonts are not stored on the server, the IP address of visitors to the website will be forwarded to Google. According to her lawyer, Hohenecker’s client saw this as a loss of control over her data. This caused emotional damage. The lawyer sees the error in the incorrect programming of the websites. In the meantime, the companies specializing in creating the websites have learned something new, Hohenecker notes in an interview.
According to Christandl, however, there is a suspicion that the websites were specifically searched and that Hohenecker’s client did not suffer any emotional damage. Above all, a lot of warnings were sent. The Lower Austrian Chamber of Commerce reports that more than 300 member companies have received mail from the “data protection attorney”, reports the “Lower Austrian News”. A total of more than 10,000 letters are said to have been sent out, according to “Kurier”.
Does a GDPR violation justify a warning?
Marcus Hohenecker replies that a violation of the General Data Protection Regulation already justifies the warning. The data protection authority, in turn, notes: “However, it is expressly made clear that the determination of legal violations in data protection matters in Austria falls exclusively within the competence of the data protection authority or the Austrian courts, but is under no circumstances to be carried out by private institutions or private individuals. The determination of a data protection violation can therefore always only take place after a legally determined, formal procedure has been carried out.
Several lawyers are currently courting the recipients of the warning letters and are expecting additional business. Hohenecker explains that he is relaxed about the complaint and the announced disciplinary proceedings at the Lower Austrian Bar Association. But: “I’m not surprised that there is a desire for clarification here,” adds Hohenecker.
The OÖN first reported on the cause in July:
Source: Nachrichten
