Since last week, lawyer Lenard has been covering the country with warning letters on behalf of Mr. Ismail. In the meantime, more than 1000 people have already been warned because of an alleged violation of personal rights due to the use of Google Fonts.
If you are affected, please read on. Attorney Julia Ruch from aktivKANZLEI shows you what you can do and provides you with a sample response letter.
If you are not affected yet, but use Google Fonts, make sure to check if your website is at risk. You can easily do so via this page: https://sicher3.de/google-fonts-checker/.
If you see that your site does not meet the requirements, please read on.
What to do?
Above all, don't be intimidated and also don't think "Oh, I'll pay that, then I'll have my peace". This is (half) legal rip-off.
aktivKANZLEI recommends the following three steps:
1. integrate Google Fonts correctly
Make sure that the Google fonts for your website are integrated locally. On the internet you can find instructions for all page builders (e.g. Wix) and CMS (e.g. WordPress).
2. add privacy policy
In the privacy policy for the website you need to add the following passage.
Google Fonts (local hosting)
This site uses so-called Google Fonts, which are provided by Google, for the uniform display of fonts. The Google Fonts are installed locally. A connection to Google servers does not take place.
Further information on Google Fonts can be found at https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq and in Google's privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=de.
3. send a reply to the lawyer
Feel free to use the sample reply letter of aktivKANZLEI for this purpose. You can download it here: https://www.aktivkanzlei.de/antwortschreiben-abmahnung
A "success guarantee" that it is finally settled, there is of course not. Mr. Ismail could file a complaint with a supervisory authority or take legal action. However, the lawyers do not believe that he will actually do this.
To sue for pain and suffering under €200.00 is not economical and is rejected per se by many courts. Since Mr. Ismail and his lawyer are probably only interested in money, they will not turn to a state data protection commissioner. There you can only complain, but you don't get any money.
Author: Julia Ruch - Attorney at Law
Source: aktivKANZLEI
Image source: #191300060 Alexander Limbach / stock.adobe.com
Published on: 4 November 2022