If you run a website in 2026, you have likely heard the warning: using Google Fonts directly from Google's servers violates GDPR.
Ever since the landmark ruling by the Regional Court of Munich (LG München), website owners across Europe and the world have scrambled to remove third-party requests to fonts.googleapis.com. The court ruled that dynamically transmitting a user's IP address to Google without consent constitutes a privacy violation.
For developers, this created a frustrating dilemma. You had two bad choices:
Risk the fines: Keep using Google Fonts and hope nobody notices (bad idea).
Sacrifice performance: Host fonts locally on your own server, losing the benefits of a global Content Delivery Network (CDN).
We built StaticDelivr to give you a third option: Privacy compliance without the performance penalty.
Why "Hosting Locally" Isn't Always the Answer
The standard advice for GDPR compliance is "just self-host your fonts." While this solves the legal issue, it introduces technical ones.
When you host font files on your own origin server, you miss out on the speed of a distributed edge network. Your users in Sydney have to download fonts from your server in New York, adding latency. Furthermore, you become responsible for managing woff2 formats, compression, and version updates manually.
The StaticDelivr Solution: A Privacy Proxy
StaticDelivr offers a Google Fonts Proxy that sits between your users and Google. It is designed to be a "set-and-forget" solution that keeps your site fast and your users' data private.
How It Works
Instead of your user's browser connecting directly to Google (which leaks their IP address), they connect to the StaticDelivr Network.
Request: Your user requests a font from StaticDelivr.
Proxy: Our edge servers fetch the file from Google.
Cleanse: We strip out the user's IP address and any tracking data.
Cache: We cache the clean file at our 577+ Points of Presence globally.
Deliver: The font is served to your user from the closest server, often faster than your own host could manage.
Because StaticDelivr does not log or store user IP addresses for tracking purposes, you can serve fonts compliantly.
Benefits Beyond Compliance
Switching to StaticDelivr isn't just about avoiding legal trouble; it’s an upgrade for your infrastructure.
Global Speed: Your fonts are served from a multi-CDN architecture powered by enterprise providers, ensuring low latency worldwide.
Automatic Optimization: We ensure files are served with the correct headers and compression (Brotli/Gzip) automatically.
Zero Maintenance: You don't need to upload files or manage versions. It works just like the Google CDN you are used to.
How to Switch
Migrating is incredibly simple. You don't need to download files or change your CSS significantly. You simply use our Google Fonts Helper tool to generate your privacy-friendly link.
Generally, it involves replacing the hostname in your <link> tag:
Before (Not GDPR Compliant):
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Inter:wght@400;700&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">After (Privacy Friendly): Using StaticDelivr, you point to our privacy-focused endpoint which handles the rest. Check our official documentation for the exact URL structure for your specific font families.
Conclusion
You shouldn't have to choose between user privacy and website performance. By using StaticDelivr, you respect your users' data rights while leveraging a world-class open source CDN.
Ready to make your site compliant? Generate your Privacy-Friendly Font Links ➜