The Dutch Data Protection Authority (Dutch DPA) has hit Google with an incremental penalty payment that could add up to as much as 15 million euros (or $18.6 million) for violating the Dutch data protection act by combining “personal data of internet users, amongst others to display personalized ads,” according to a press release.
"Google catches us in an invisible web of our personal data without telling us and without asking us for our consent,” said Dutch DPA Chairman Jacob Kohnstamm in statement in the release.
The alleged offense harkens back to 2012 when Google introduced a new privacy policy that allowed it to gather data from Web users in an effort to target ads.
The DPA asked Google to obtain “unambiguous” user consent, clarify its privacy policy and make clear that “YouTube is part of Google” by February 2015.
