France has handed Google a €50 million fine for breaking EU privacy laws

Google has been fined €50 million ($57 million) by French authorities for breaking the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation.

The news: France’s National Data Protection Commission (CNIL) concluded that Google is flouting the European Union’s privacy law in two ways. First, by failing to explain its data collection policies properly, and second, by failing to get users’ consent for data processing and ad personalization across its services, including its search engine, Google Maps, and YouTube.

Record-breaker: The fine is the biggest so far under GDPR, which came into force in May 2018. It was handed out in response to two complaints filed on the day the law went into effect, by NOYB, a watchdog launched by Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems, and French digital rights group La Quadrature du Net.

In other EU news … A final vote on its controversial Copyright Directive has been called off after 11 countries withdrew support for it. It’s been delayed until March.