The above is a recital which gives background and useful in interpretation. However Article 7 is the meat in relation to consent. https://www.privacy-regulatio

The above is a recital which gives background and useful in interpretation. However Article 7 is the meat in relation to consent. https://www.privacy-regulation.eu/en/7.htm https://www.privacy-regulation.eu/en/7.htm In answer to your question the two items are independent. The first item gets at the idea that it's not possible to provide consent where the you really have no choice but to consent (i.e due to imbalance of power). One area of particular interest is in the field of employer-employee relations. Bundling up consent with a job offers means it's very difficult for the employer to refuse. The other item gets at general service provision. You shouldn't make consent a condition of providing a service where that consent isn't necessary to provide the service. So really the feeling at least consent-wise is that Google cannot attach consent to gather info for advertising with a service provision like search. However they may instead seek to rely on a separate processing ground under art 6. The main one would be legitimate interests. There is some debate over the applicability if that ground is acceptable though. /edit Plus the new ePrivacy Regulation brings additional considerations - in particular there's not currently any legitimate interests ground for processing