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Laura Somaini

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Laura Somaini is an associate in the Data Privacy and Cybersecurity Practice Group.

Laura advises clients on EU data protection, e-privacy and technology law, including on Italian requirements. She regularly assists clients in relation to GDPR compliance, international data transfers, direct marketing rules as well as data protection contracts and policies.

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On April 17, 2023, the Italian Supervisory Authority (“Garante”) published its decision against a company operating digital marketing services finding several GDPR violations, including the use of so-called “dark-patterns” to obtain users’ consent.  The Garante imposed a fine of 300.000 EUR. 

We provide below a brief overview of the Garante’s key findings.

Background

The sanctioned company operated marketing campaigns on behalf of its clients, via text messages, emails and automated calls.  The company’s database of contacts was formed by data collected directly through its online portals (offering news, sweepstakes and trivia), as well as data purchased from data brokers.

Key Findings

Dark patterns.  The Garante found that, during the subscription process, the user was asked for specific consent relating to marketing purposes and sharing of data with third parties for marketing.  If the user did not select either of the checkboxes, a banner would pop-up, indicating the lack of consent, and displaying a prominent consent button.  The site also displayed a “continue without accepting” option, but this was placed at the bottom of the webpage – outside of the pop-up banner – in simple text form and smaller font size, which made it less visible than the “consent” button.  The Garante, referring to the EDPB’s guidelines (see our blogpost here), held that the use of such interfaces and graphic elements constituted “dark patterns” with the aim of pushing individuals towards providing consent.

Double opt-in.  The Garante noted that consent was not adequately documented.  While the company argued that it required a “double opt-in”, the evidence showed that a confirmation request was not consistently sent out to users.  The Garante recalled that double opt-in is not a mandatory requirement in Italy, but constitutes nonetheless an appropriate method to document consent.…

Continue Reading Italian Garante Fines Digital Marketing Company Over Use of Dark Patterns

On June 23, 2022 the Italian data protection authority (“Garante”) released a general statement (here) flagging the unlawfulness of data transfers to the U.S. resulting from the use of Google Analytics.  The Garante invites all Italian website operators, both public and private, to verify that the use of cookies and other tracking tools on their websites is compliant with data protection law, in particular with regards to the use of Google Analytics and similar services. 

The Garante’s statement follows an order (here) issued against an Italian website operator to stop data transfers to Google LLC in the U.S., and joins other European data protection authorities in their actions relating to the use of Google Analytics (see our previous blogs here and here).

Below we summarize the Garante’s key considerations.

  • Google Analytics’ “IP Anonymization” feature

The Garante analyzes Google Analytics’ so-called “IP-Anonymization” feature, which allows the transfer of user IP addresses to Google Analytics after masking the IP address’ last octet.  The Garante finds that such feature constitutes a pseudonymization of the IP address, and not anonymization.  According to the Garante, the feature does not prevent Google LLC from re-identifying the user, given Google’s capabilities to enrich such data through additional information it holds, especially in circumstances where those users maintain and use a Google account.…

Continue Reading Italian Garante bans use of Google Analytics