{"id":42698,"date":"2022-01-06T12:26:32","date_gmt":"2022-01-06T12:26:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/?guid=898c270e99752c9e409a71a560543c7b"},"modified":"2022-01-06T12:26:32","modified_gmt":"2022-01-06T12:26:32","slug":"google-facebook-fined-e210-million-for-making-it-difficult-for-users-to-reject-cookies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/google-facebook-fined-e210-million-for-making-it-difficult-for-users-to-reject-cookies\/","title":{"rendered":"Google, Facebook fined \u20ac210 million for making it difficult for users to reject cookies"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n Zach Marzouk<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
6 Jan, 2022<\/span><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\u200b<\/span>Google<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>\u00a0have been hit with\u00a0a combined\u00a0fine of \u20ac210 million (\u00a3175 million) over failures in policies\u00a0that\u00a0allow users to accept and refuse cookies on their websites.<\/p>\n

France’s National Commission for Information Technology and Civil Liberties\u00a0regulator (CNIL)\u00a0fined<\/a> Google \u20ac150 million euros, \u20ac90 million for Google LLC and \u20ac60 million for Google Ireland Limited, while Facebook Ireland Limited was given a fine of \u20ac60 million.<\/p>\n

CNIL\u00a0said that the websites facebook.com, google.fr, and youtube.com have all failed to provide an easy way for users to\u00a0reject cookie collection on their browsers, and that several clicks are required to refuse all cookies, compared with a single click to provide consent.<\/p>\n

The regulator argued the fact users are unable to refuse cookies as easily as they can accept them influences their choice in favour of consent,\u00a0constituting an infringement of Article 82 of the French Data Protection<\/a> Act.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\" <\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, head of France’s National Commission for Information Technology and Civil Liberties (CNIL), speaking at CNIL’s headquarters in Paris<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The penalties\u00a0also order the companies to provide internet users in France with a means of refusing cookies that is at least as simple as the existing mechanism for\u00a0accepting them, within a three month period. If they fail to do so, the companies will have to pay a penalty of \u20ac100,000 per day of delay.<\/p>\n

“We are reviewing the authority’s decision and remain committed to working with relevant authorities,\u201d a spokesperson from Meta<\/a> told IT Pro<\/em>. \u201cOur 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Google<\/a> spokesperson said: \u201cPeople trust us to respect their right to privacy and keep them safe. We understand our responsibility to protect that trust and are committing to further changes and active work with the CNIL in light of this decision under the ePrivacy Directive.”<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time that CNIL has targeted big tech companies over their use of cookies. In December 2020, Amazon and Google were fined \u00a3122 million<\/a>\u00a0collectively for \u201cinsufficient\u201d cookie consent. Google was hit with a \u20ac100 million (\u00a390 million) fine while Amazon<\/a> received one for \u20ac35 million (\u00a332 million).<\/p>\n

According to the investigation, Google didn\u2019t provide enough information to users in France about why and how cookies are used, whereas Amazon was fined for placing cookies on people\u2019s computers without their consent.<\/p>\n

Google challenged this\u00a0fine at the Council of State in February 2021, according to\u00a0Euractiv<\/em><\/a>. Politico<\/em><\/a> reported that Google is still fighting this case, and a source said the company is likely to oppose the new fines and go to the French top court again. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zach Marzouk<\/p>\n

6 Jan, 2022 <\/p>\n

\u200bGoogle and Facebook\u00a0have been hit with\u00a0a combined\u00a0fine of \u20ac210 million (\u00a3175 million) over failures in policies\u00a0that\u00a0allow users to accept and refuse cookies on their websites.
\nFrance’s National…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":654,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/654"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42698"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42719,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42698\/revisions\/42719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}