Unseen University

And now for something completely different

by Ty Myrddin

Published on February 15, 2022

The Larch

And when you least expect it, there is a Larch.

Google Fonts

The Landgericht München’s third civil chamber in Munich, found that a website, by including Google-Fonts-hosted font on its pages, passed the unidentified plaintiff’s IP address to Google without authorization and without a legitimate reason for doing so. This violates the GDPR.

Google and Facebook Cookie consent

CNIL, the French data protection regulator, has issued fines to Google and Facebook for making it harder to refuse cookies than to accept them. The CNIL noted that the websites facebook.com, google.fr, and youtube.com offer a button allowing the user to immediately accept cookies. But they do not provide an equivalent solution (button or other mechanism) enabling the website user to just as easily refuse the use of these cookies.

Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF)

When users visit a website or application for the first time, an interface (a Consent Management platform or CMP) will pop up where the user may consent to the collection and sharing of their personal data, or object to various types of processing based on the legitimate interests of ad tech vendors. The TCF facilitates the capture of the users’ preferences which are then shared with the organisations using the Open Real Time Bidding system.

The Belgian data protection authority (APD) determined that IAB Europe acts as a data controller for the registration of individual users’ preferences by means of the Transparency and Consent String, linked to an identified user. As such, it finds IAB Europe in violation of the GDPR with its pop-up consent system which is used by companies to make ads and online tracking compliant with the GDPR. The decision has implications for the entire online ad industry, as data collected through the system must now be deleted.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics provides statistics on website traffic. After receiving complaints from the NOYB association, the CNIL analysed the conditions under which the data collected through this service is transferred to the United States. The CNIL considers these transfers illegal and ordered a French website manager to comply with the GDPR and, if necessary, to stop using this service.

For Wordpress sites, a good alternative could be burst.


Raw magic crackled from their spines, earthing itself harmlessly in the copper rails nailed to every shelf for that very purpose. Faint traceries of blue fire crawled across the bookcases and there was a sound, a papery whispering, such as might come from a colony of roosting starlings. In the silence of the night the books talked to one another. A student