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France’s National Commission for Informatics and Freedoms (CNIL) imposed fines of 150 and 60 million euros respectively on Google and Facebook for their cookie policy. The tech giants have three months to rectify their situation under penalty of a fine of 100,000 euros per day of delay.
After receiving numerous complaints from users, the CNIL launched an investigation into the cookie policies of Google, Facebook and YouTube, concluding that, on their pages, they do not allow rejecting cookies as easily as accepting them. In fact, a single click is enough to allow the use of cookies by the company, but several are necessary to be able to deny all cookies.
The entity responsible for the protection of personal data in France considers that this practice goes against the freedom of consent that article 82 of the French data protection law protects.
Google will have to pay two fines for a total of 150 million euros while Facebook will have to pay 60 million euros. Companies have three months so that users can reject or accept cookies with the same ease under penalty of a fine of 100,000 euros for each day of delay.
Cookies, a considerable source of income for companies
Cookies are a data file generated when consulting a web page and that allow the user to send personalized advertising.
The fine imposed on Google is a record for the CNIL, as in December 2020 it had forced the IT company to pay a fine of 100 million euros for its use of cookies. The amount of the fines is justified by the fact that Google and Facebook generate considerable profits thanks to the advertisements generated with the data collected by these cookies.
In a statement sent to AFP, Google announced that it will change its cookie policy with respect to the CNIL’s decision:
“We are committed to applying new changes, as well as working actively with the CNIL in response to its decision, in accordance with the directive [europea] ePrivacy, “the company posted.
For two years, the CNIL has been fighting for the actors who edit high-traffic pages to comply with the police use of cookies. The European Union adopted a text in 2018 that obliges websites to respect stricter rules to collect the consent of users before placing their cookies.
With AFP and local media
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