France fines Facebook and Google millions over tracking

LONDON — French regulators on Thursday fined Google and Facebook a total of just over €200 million ($288 million Cda) for not making it as easy for people to opt out of online tracking as it is for them to accept it.

The CNIL data privacy watchdog said its investigations found that while the U.S. online giants gave French users a single button to immediately accept cookies, there wasn’t an equally simple way for them to decline because “several clicks are required to refuse all cookies.”

Cookies are snippets of code used to target internet users for digital ads and other purposes

European governments have stricter regulations than the U.S. and Canada that require websites to ask for permission before tracking a user’s activity. That means people face pop-up menus when they visit new websites, but there’s been growing concern that many are configured to make it confusing or tedious if they don’t want to give consent.

Visitors to Facebook, Google’s French homepage and YouTube were being nudged to say yes, which meant they weren’t freely giving their consent, a violation of French data protection rules, the CNIL said.

The French watchdog slapped Google with a €150 million ($215 million Cda) penalty and Facebook with a €60 million ($85 million Cda) fine. It also threatened daily fines of €100,000 if they don’t make it simpler for users in France to refuse cookies within three months.

Facebook, which has been renamed Meta, said it’s reviewing the decision and is committed to working with authorities.

Google said: “People trust us to respect their right to privacy and keep them safe. We understand our responsibility to protect that trust.”

Cookies have been a longstanding source of privacy concerns because they can be used to help remember someone’s website log-in details or more controversially, to record someone’s web-browsing history to target personalized ads.