"Gaslighting"? I opened the PDF. If by "dense data in a spreadsheet" you mean rows like the very first one:
Category: Accounting
Purported processing purpose: “purposes such as accounting...”
Other discoverable processing purposes: “…such as…” is vague language that may conflate or omit many distinct processing purposes.
Data collected: BLANK
Data shared externally: BLANK
Explanation and examples: For example, when you purchase apps from the Play Store or products from the Google Store.
Purported legal basis: Unknown
Give me a break, the legal reason in the first column. To me obvious reason this is a 60 page PDF is because they hope people don't open it and discover that they are full of shit.
"Give me a break, the legal reason in the first column. To me obvious reason this is a 60 page PDF is because they hope people don't open it and discover that they are full of shit."
No, this is unreasonable, essentially false.
It's a very comprehensive recording of the specific issues relevant to all of the Google properties that they could find.
It's perfectly reasonable that there are 'empty columns', it's a table of data, not a 'communications document'. Data won't apply in many cases.
Far from being 'full of shit' - it's the complete opposite.
What the data demonstrates very specifically is that there are literally a thousand different places users are supposedly informed of their rights while being acquiesced, that it's all very opaque, that it's obviously not comprehensive for any person, and essentially hostile to reasonable user experience.
In GDPR terms, the "Legal Basis" is one of the following six values[1]:
Vital Interest
Public Benefit
Legal Obligation
Performance of Contract
Legitimate Interest
Consent
"Accounting" is not a Legal Basis.
Several might apply, including Legal Obligation, Performance of Contract, Consent, or Legitimate Interest. Stating the Legal Basis for processing is one of the requirements under the Right to Transparency[2]. Among other things, the Legal Basis affects other rights the Data Subject has. E.g. the Right to Erasure is much stronger for data collected under Consent than Legal Obligation.
On the face of it, it looks to me that Brave has a point: Google is not complying with some (frankly, rather simple) transparency requirements.
I couldn't find the exact line from the citation in the pdf[1], but I assume "Accounting" means financial accounting ("For example, when you purchase apps from the Play Store or products from the Google Store."), which is a legal obligation?
The fact that you have to guess is exactly the problem ;)
Accounting for SEC filings or whatnot are legal obligations. But processing an individual payment is also probably part of Performance of Contract, and Google explicitly mentions fraud detection on that same page, which is usually Legitimate Interest. To say nothing of whether that financial data is compiled into a user profile or used to train a model in some way.
Category: Accounting
Purported processing purpose: “purposes such as accounting...”
Other discoverable processing purposes: “…such as…” is vague language that may conflate or omit many distinct processing purposes.
Data collected: BLANK
Data shared externally: BLANK
Explanation and examples: For example, when you purchase apps from the Play Store or products from the Google Store. Purported legal basis: Unknown
Give me a break, the legal reason in the first column. To me obvious reason this is a 60 page PDF is because they hope people don't open it and discover that they are full of shit.