Facebook and Google started their year with a loss in revenue as France ordered a monetary penalty for preventing French users from rejecting their cookies.
Why France Fines Facebook and Google
According to the French data privacy watchdog, Google and Facebook have been fined roughly over £210m ($284m) each for preventing users from blocking the tracking of their online activity.
This Thursday, Jan. 6, Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) announced that Google was fined a record €150m ($203m) for making it difficult for French internet users to refuse their cookies, comprising small text files that build up a profile of a user's activities on the web.
Similarly, the commission also fined Facebook €60m ($81m) for the same reason-tracking user activity.
CNIL's head of data protection, Karin Kiefer, says accepting cookies from websites can be done in a click, and rejecting them 'should be as easy as accepting them.'
A watchdog reported that facebook.com, google.fr, and youtube.com websites do not allow users to reject cookies easily.
CNIL asserts that it's unfair that several clicks are required to reject all cookies compared to a single click to accept them, citing that it constitutes an infringement of Article 82 of the French Data Protection Act.
Moreover, CNIL said that the mentioned companies have three months to comply with these orders, such as making declining cookies easier for French users or facing extra fines of €100,000 (roughly $114,000) for each day they delay.
What Google and Facebook have to say
In response to CNIL's decision and ultimatum, a Google spokesperson clarified that the useres are aware of their users' trust in their services. They also acknowledged their responsibility to respect every user's right to privacy and, most importantly, their safety.
To settle it right, Google will actively work with the CNIL in light of their rulings.
In Meta's case, the company claims that they are still reviewing the decision made by CNIL. They also released a statement underlining their commitment to work with French authorities.
"Our cookie consent controls provide people with greater control over their data, including a new settings menu on Facebook and Instagram where people can revisit and manage their decisions at any time, and we continue to develop and improve these controls," said Meta's spokesperson.
Recalling in April 2020, CNIL sent out 90 formal notices to websites with the same violations. In the same year, they fined Google and Amazon €100m ($113m) and €35m (around $40m), respectively, for their violations.
Then, since March of 2021, CNIL had adopted nearly a hundred corrective measures, including orders and sanctions, when websites and mobile applications were due to comply with the new rules on cookies.
In the past two years, the CNIL has been implementing a global compliance strategy that involves identifying foreign and French actors publishing websites with high traffic and communicating practices that violate their legislation.
Related Article : Apple Apps Track User Despite Refusing Consent | Here's Why | Tech Times
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Written by Thea Felicity
