On Thursday the authorities said, French regulators have struck Facebook and Google with 210 million euros that is $237 million in fines over their utilization of “cookies”, the information utilized to track users online.
The likes of Amazon and Apple involving the US tech giants have included under the increasing pressure for their business’s practices throughout Europe, where they have gone through enormous fines and plans to force all-inclusive EU rules and regulations on how they work.
The fine of 150 million euros charge on Google was a unique record by the National Commission for Information Technology and Freedom of France (CNIL), and hitting the previous fine of cookies of 100 million euros in opposition to the company in December 2020.
Facebook has delivered a fine of 60 million euros.
However, the administrative body said, “CNIL has decided that the sites like facebook.com, youtube.com (Google-owned), and google.fr don’t authorize users to reject the use of cookies as quietly as to receive them.”
Further, CNIL added,” the two platforms have three months left to change their practices, and after that France will force a fine of 100,000 euros once a day.
Whereas, Google said AFP that it would change its practices after the decisions.”
The US firm said in a statement, “likewise along with the expectations of the internet users…We are intended to execute the latest changes, and working actively with CNIL in reply to its decision.”
However, Cookies are the small packet of data that are organized on the computer of the user, when they look in a website and authorize web browsers to save the details about their session.
They are greatly appreciated by Facebook and Google as a strategy to customize the advertising- their initial source of income.
But the privacy promoters have a long force-back.
From when the European Union passed the 2018 law on personal information, the internet companies have gone through strict regulations that force them to look after the direct agreement of the users before inserting cookies on their computers.
