Tech
France fines Microsoft 60m Euros over advertising cookies
France’s privacy watchdog, National Commission for Technology and Freedoms (CNIL), has fined US tech giant, Microsoft, 60 million euros ($64 million) for foisting advertising cookies on users.
The regulatory body stated this on Thursday noting that Microsoft’s search engine Bing had not set up a system allowing users to refuse cookies as simply as accepting them.
According to the French regulator, investigations have revealed that “when users visited this site, cookies were deposited on their terminal without their consent, while these cookies were used, among others, for advertising purposes.”
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Also, it “observed that there was no button allowing to refuse the deposit of cookies as easily as accepting it.”
Speaking on the fine, the CNIL said the fine was justified in part because of the profits the company made from advertising profits indirectly generated from the data collected via cookies.
Microsoft has been given three months to rectify the issue, with a potential further penalty of 60,000 euros per day overdue.
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