Google falls foul of EU Data protection rules
Google has been fined 50 million euros (£44m) by the French data regulator CNIL, for a breach of the EU's data protection rules.
CNIL said it had levied the record fine for "lack of transparency, inadequate information and lack of valid consent regarding ads personalisation".
The regulator said it judged that people were "not sufficiently informed" about how Google collected data to personalise advertising.
In a statement, Google said it was "studying the decision" to determine its next steps.
Amazon, Apple, Google, Netflix and Spotify face GDPR complaint
Complaints against Google were filed in May 2018 by two privacy rights groups: noyb and La Quadrature du Net (LQDN).
The first complaint under the EU's new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was filed on 25 May 2018, the day the legislation took effect.
The groups claimed Google did not have a valid legal basis to process user data for ad personalisation, as mandated by the GDPR.