Google Fonts GDPR sheds light on the extent to which the integration of Google Fonts is GDPR-compliant.
What are Google Fonts?
Google Fonts are initially an interactive directory from Google. In this directory, Google provides countless different fonts - free of charge. Let's think back to the beginnings of the web and the beginnings of web design. In the beginning, only the standard fonts such as Arial, Helvetica, Couria and a few others were available. If a text had to be displayed in a striking font for certain reasons, then an image had to be created for it. In other words, an image containing text. This approach was not very search engine friendly because a few years ago, search engines were not yet able to recognize text from images. This is somewhat different today.
So there was great joy when Google Fonts gave us the opportunity to access many different fonts. This was made possible by Google free of charge.
The properties of Google Fonts
Google Fonts are accessed at the address fonts.googleapsis.com. Behind this is a Google server on which the fonts or Google Fonts are stored. This server is not located in Germany.
IMPORTANT TO KNOW:
According to Google itself, CSS and font queries are separate from each other and cannot be linked to Google services.
Now to Google Fonts GDPR
Google Fonts have recently become very controversial. Accordingly, the use of Google Fonts violates the GDPR. So if you visit a website on which Google Fonts are used, the fonts are loaded via the aforementioned Google server. Google recognizes the IP of the visitor and recognizes that this IP is currently visiting a specific website. Google also recognizes the language settings, the browser used, the screen resolution and the device. Google makes this information available in the Google Analytics evaluations, among other things. This is very valuable information for website operators. Among other things, you can see which devices are used to access the website more: smartphone, tablet or PC and more.
According to the GDPR, it is NOT prohibited to embed Google Fonts on a website. However, if you embed these fonts, you must ensure that they are not reloaded from the Google server. This means that the transmission of information to the Google server must be interrupted so that the above-mentioned information cannot be retrieved.