The fine of €150,000 – the highest ever issued by CNIL – followed similar action in Spain, as well as criticism from Dutch authorities, that Google’s unified privacy policy, introduced in March 2012, “does not sufficiently inform its users of the conditions in which their personal data are processed, nor of the purposes of this processing”.

According to French newspaper Le Figaro, via Out-Law.com, “Google has argued that French data protection rules are unenforceable in the case and has challenged CNIL’s right to impose penalties on it.”