Google Fonts and User Consent - A Developer Guide

Google Fonts may seem like a simple tool for better typography, but it can raise serious privacy concerns. When fonts load from Google’s servers, users’ IP addresses are shared—considered personal data under GDPR.

In the ever-evolving landscape of web development, aesthetics and user experience often take centre stage. Google Fonts, with its vast library of open-source typefaces, has long been a go-to resource for developers seeking to enhance their website's visual appeal. However, as privacy regulations like the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) become more stringent, the seemingly innocuous act of embedding a font can carry significant legal implications. This article delves into the nuances of using Google Fonts while respecting user privacy and ensuring compliance, offering practical, developer-focused solutions.

The Privacy of Google Fonts

At first glance, Google Fonts appears to be a straightforward service: you link to a stylesheet, and beautiful typography appears on your site. But beneath this simplicity lies a critical privacy consideration. When a user's browser requests a font from Google's servers, it inevitably transmits the user's IP address. Under GDPR, an IP address is considered personal data. Without explicit user consent, this transmission can be deemed a violation.

Recent court rulings, notably a German court decision in January 2022, have underscored this issue, declaring that the direct use of Google Fonts from Google's CDN without user consent is indeed a GDPR violation. This has sent ripples through the developer community, prompting a re-evaluation of how external resources are handled.

So, what does this mean for developers? It means that relying solely on Google's CDN for serving fonts requires a robust consent mechanism. Users must be given a clear choice to accept or decline the loading of these external resources. While technically feasible, implementing such a consent flow specifically for fonts can introduce friction into the user experience and add complexity to your codebase. Moreover, the granularity of consent required by GDPR can be challenging to meet, as users might need to consent to each specific data processing activity.

Developer-Focused Solutions for Compliance

Fortunately, developers have several strategies to navigate this privacy landscape while still leveraging the power of custom typography. The most straightforward and widely recommended approach is local hosting.

1. Local Hosting: The Gold Standard for Privacy

Local hosting involves downloading the Google Font files and serving them directly from your own web server. This eliminates any direct connection to Google's servers when a user visits your site, thus preventing the transmission of their IP address to Google. It's a clean, compliant, and often performant solution.

Google itself provides a guide on self-hosting Google fonts, which covers the technical details and best practices.

How to Implement Local Hosting:

Download the Fonts: You can download Google Fonts directly from the Google Fonts website.
Host on Your Server: Place the downloaded font files (e.g., .woff, .woff2, .ttf) in a directory on your web server (e.g., /fonts).
Update Your CSS: Instead of linking to Google's stylesheet, use @font-face rules in your CSS to point to your locally hosted font files. Ensure you provide multiple formats for broader browser compatibility.

While local hosting is preferred, there might be scenarios where dynamic loading is necessary or desired. In such cases, you must implement a robust consent mechanism. This typically involves:

Initial Block: Prevent Google Fonts from loading by default.
Consent Banner: Display a clear and prominent consent banner or pop-up that informs users about the use of Google Fonts and requests their permission.
User Choice: Provide explicit options for users to accept or reject the use of Google Fonts.
Dynamic Loading: If consent is given, dynamically load the Google Fonts stylesheet. If consent is denied, use system fonts or a locally hosted alternative.

Example of Conditional Loading with CookieChimp:

CookieChimp, provides ways to manage consent for external resources.

Using Custom JavaScript for Dynamic Control:

This approach offers granular control and is necessary when dealing with resources that aren't directly blocked by CookieChimp's data attributes, such as <link> tags for stylesheets. You can leverage CookieChimp's JavaScript API and callbacks to programmatically load the Google Fonts CSS after consent has been granted.

First, define functions to load and remove the Google Fonts stylesheet. Then, use CookieChimp's cc:onUpdate event listener to react to consent changes. This event fires whenever a user's consent preferences are updated.

function loadGoogleFonts(fontFamily = 'Open Sans') {
    const link = document.createElement('link');
    link.href = `https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=${fontFamily.replace(/ /g, '+')}&display=swap`;
    link.rel = 'stylesheet';
    document.head.appendChild(link);
}

function removeGoogleFonts() {
    const existingLink = document.querySelector('link[href^="https://fonts.googleapis.com/"]');
    if (existingLink) {
        existingLink.remove();
    }
}

window.addEventListener("cc:onUpdate", function (event) {
    // Check if the 'preferences' category (or your custom category for fonts) is accepted
    if (CookieConsent.acceptedService("Google Fonts", "preferences")) {
        loadGoogleFonts();
    } else {
        removeGoogleFonts();
    }
});

// Initial check on page load in case consent is already given
if (typeof CookieConsent !== 'undefined' && CookieConsent.acceptedService("Google Fonts", "preferences")) {
    loadGoogleFonts();
}

This approach allows you to define custom consent categories and react to consent changes dynamically. Remember to replace "Google Fonts" with the actual service name and "preferences" with the category name you use for Google Fonts in your CMP configuration.

3. Embracing System Fonts

For the utmost privacy and simplicity, consider relying entirely on system fonts. These are fonts already present on the user's operating system, requiring no external requests. While this limits your typographic choices, it guarantees zero privacy implications related to font loading.

body {
    font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol";
}

This CSS snippet uses a font stack that prioritises common system fonts across different operating systems, ensuring a consistent (though not identical) look and feel.

Conclusion

As developers, our responsibility extends beyond just building functional and aesthetically pleasing websites; it includes safeguarding user privacy. While Google Fonts offers an undeniable convenience, the legal landscape surrounding data privacy demands a more thoughtful approach. By embracing local hosting, implementing robust consent mechanisms, or opting for system fonts, we can continue to create rich web experiences without compromising our users' privacy rights. The choice is ours, and with the right knowledge, we can make informed decisions that benefit both our projects and our users.