The US tech giant Microsoft has been penalized 60 million euros ($64 million) by France’s privacy authorities for forcing advertising cookies on customers.
The National Commission for Technology and Freedoms (CNIL), which levied the biggest fine in 2022, claimed that Microsoft’s search engine Bing did not have a framework in place that allowed users to reject cookies as easily as accepting them.
According to the French authority, investigations revealed that “cookies were put on users’ terminals when they visited this site without their authorization, and these cookies were exploited, among other things, for advertising purposes.”
It also “observed that there was no button allowing to refuse the deposit of cookies as easily as accepting it.”
The fine, according to the CNIL, was justified in part by the company’s advertising earnings that were gained as a result of cookies, which are little data files used to track internet activity.
Bing stated that users could accept all cookies instantly by clicking a button, but that rejecting them required two clicks.
The company has three months to fix the problem or face an additional fine of 60,000 euros per day late.
Microsoft Ireland, the location of the company’s European headquarters, was hit with the penalties.
In a statement Microsoft said that it had “introduced key changes to our cookie practices even before this investigation started.”
“We continue to respectfully be concerned with the CNIL’s position on advertising fraud,” it said, adding that it believes the French watchdog’s “position will harm French individuals and businesses.”
