Google Fonts: Austrian warning lawyer makes crude statements about earnings

Around 11,900 hours of work – without a break? Google Fonts Abmahnanwalt contradicts himself with the information about his earnings.

For the letters that he sent out on behalf of his client, he received the usual hourly rate that a lawyer receives. The Austrian lawyer, who has sent thousands of warnings to website operators for using Google Fonts, made this statement on Austrian television. There he was seen in the program called “Bürgeranwalt”. As the daily newspaper Der Standard reports, this statement is contradicted by the fact that the letter contained a reimbursement of costs for his work. Each person affected should pay the lawyer 90 euros – in addition to the 100 euros in damages for his client.

If everyone who was written to had paid the money, the self-proclaimed “data protection lawyer” would have collected around 2.97 million euros. However, he would have had to charge his client for this. The calculation of the standard goes on as follows: “If the 2.97 million euros in reimbursement of costs is based on a standard hourly rate of 250 euros, that would mean that Hohenecker (Editor’s note: the lawyer’s name) spent almost 11,900 hours on his warning letters or worked 495 days without a break.” So now it is also in the room that reimbursement of costs was requested on behalf of the client, which did not even arise.

Site visits via software lead to severe discomfort

The entire case is already with the Austrian business and corruption prosecutor (WKStA). This only intervenes if the damage totals more than 5 million euros. The lawyer Marcus Hohenecker has warned thousands of website operators on behalf of his client Eva Z., it should be around 33,000. In Germany, too, there are mass warnings based on a shaky business model. The point is that bloggers and small businesses in particular have integrated Google Fonts into their websites, but have not saved them locally. As a result, IP addresses end up with Google or Alphabet when you visit the website. There was a controversial judgment by a Munich court on which these warnings are now based in both Austria and Germany.

The mechanical procedure is also problematic. The warning lawyer refers to the discomfort of his client, who is said to have visited all 33,000 pages. They are accused of having acted fraudulently and having retrieved the pages by machine.