In a case related to cookie tracking of online users, France’s Data Privacy Watchdog slapped a hefty penalty of €210m for stopping companies from snooping on online users.
The Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertes (CNIL) said that penalty was split between two companies, with Google being slapped with €150m for making it difficult for online users to refuse cookie pop-ups. The same reason was quoted for Facebook and a penalty of €60 million was slapped against it.
CNIL stated that both the companies will be provided with a time frame of 3 months to appeal against the penalty, after which they need to cough up the fine with no further notices.
Karin Kiefer, the head of CNIL, stated that both the companies made it difficult for online users to reject cookies as they were forcing users to accept the pop-ups multiple times.
On the other hand, Google responded to the penalty maturely and stated that it will deal with the situation with great responsibility and will take all necessary steps to respect their users’ privacy by keeping their data safe.
Facebook’s parent company Meta said that it is reviewing the decision and will come up with a solution recommended by its technical committee.
Note- In the year 2020, CNIL passed on an order that companies that are into online services should maintain a separate database of users who refuse to accept cookies and the information must remain intact at least for the next 6 months of their denial or acceptance of the trackers.
