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>... as of now it's risk for the developer to use Google Fonts. Couldn't the developer download and host the font locally instead of calling back to Google's s

>... as of now it's risk for the developer to use Google Fonts. Couldn't the developer download and host the font locally instead of calling back to Google's servers to load the font?

teknopaul 4y ago
Yes
cardanome 4y ago
Yes. The person claiming Google Fonts would be "illegal" in Germany is misinformed. It is simply considered best practice to self-host Google Fonts now and you are absolutely safe doing so. The basics of privacy law is basically don't violate the privacy of your users for no good reason. There is no technical justification to use a Google's third party service for fonts, especially as that potentially allows Google to track users. (You could still use Google's hosting if you were to get prior user consent though. Just have a fallback font. That wouldn't be worth it though.) So yes, you can use third party services and CDNs on your website but it needs to be either technically necessary or you need for user consent beforehand.
- Jack5500 4y ago
  Just to make sure, I didn't say illegal, just unlawful. I agree with everything else you said.
  - Archelaos 4y ago
    To further contextualise the judgement: This was a trial before a medium level district court (Landgericht). So there has not yet been any landmark court decisions on this specific issue in Germany.
- tiborsaas 4y ago
  Is caring about performance a good enough justification? Chances are most popular Google Fonts are already cached in your browser.
  - 542458 4y ago
    Cross-site caching doesn’t exist in any modern browser (IIRC each site gets it’s own separate cache) because it enables all sorts of tracking and leaks browsing history.
zamalek 4y ago
Shared CDNs (Google Fonts, jsdelivr, etc.) provide absolutely no advantage in modern browsers due to privacy concerns. The developer should be self-hosting the font instead of using Google's servers irrespective of German law.

>... as of now it's risk for the developer to use Google Fonts. Couldn't the developer download and host the font locally instead of calling back to Google's servers to load the font?

teknopaul 4y ago

Yes

cardanome 4y ago

Yes. The person claiming Google Fonts would be "illegal" in Germany is misinformed. It is simply considered best practice to self-host Google Fonts now and you are absolutely safe doing so. The basics of privacy law is basically don't violate the privacy of your users for no good reason. There is no technical justification to use a Google's third party service for fonts, especially as that potentially allows Google to track users. (You could still use Google's hosting if you were to get prior user consent though. Just have a fallback font. That wouldn't be worth it though.) So yes, you can use third party services and CDNs on your website but it needs to be either technically necessary or you need for user consent beforehand.

Jack5500 4y ago
Just to make sure, I didn't say illegal, just unlawful. I agree with everything else you said.
- Archelaos 4y ago
  To further contextualise the judgement: This was a trial before a medium level district court (Landgericht). So there has not yet been any landmark court decisions on this specific issue in Germany.
tiborsaas 4y ago
Is caring about performance a good enough justification? Chances are most popular Google Fonts are already cached in your browser.
- 542458 4y ago
  Cross-site caching doesn’t exist in any modern browser (IIRC each site gets it’s own separate cache) because it enables all sorts of tracking and leaks browsing history.

zamalek 4y ago

Shared CDNs (Google Fonts, jsdelivr, etc.) provide absolutely no advantage in modern browsers due to privacy concerns. The developer should be self-hosting the font instead of using Google's servers irrespective of German law.