Google and Facebook Fined For Cookie Violations 2022
Both Alphabet (the parent company of Google and Meta (the parent company of Facebook) have today been fined by the French data protection regulator due to both tech giants violating cookie consent laws. The regulator imposing the fines is the Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés, or CNIL for short.
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Google’s fine is 150 million Euros or approximately $170 million whereas Facebook’s fine comes to 60 million euros which is roughly $68 million.
Google & Facebook Cookie Law Violation
The violation that Google and Facebook have been found guilty of is in regards to the acceptance of cookies on their websites. The investigation found that on facebook.com, google.fr and youtube.com there are buttons to immediately accept cookies, but not an equally comparable option to refuse cookies.
The CNIL determined that this is an infringement of Article 82 of the French Data Protection Act as:
“This process affects the freedom of consent: since, on the Internet, the user expects to be able to quickly consult a website, the fact that they cannot refuse the cookies as easily as they can accept them influences their choice in favor of consent.”
CNIL Statement
The CNIL has also ordered both companies to update their websites providing users located in France with the ability to refuse cookies as easily as they can accept them which would guarantee freedom of consent. Each company has 3 months to comply with the changes or they will face further fines of 100,000 Euros per day for every day of delay.
Whilst surely an easy fix for both companies it does not make good PR for either one especially with the year that Facebook has had and the accusations that have been labeled at the company.
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Dave Furness
Dave is a Co-Founder of eSeller365. For over 10 years he has been involved with eCommerce with a particular interest in the marketplaces and the huge opportunities available for sellers when utilizing a multi-channel strategy. After a year of being the UK’s youngest eCommerce consultant, he built an education platform called UnderstandingE that showed the world how to utilize Magento as the “Third Generation of Multi-Channel software”.
Dave has also created a YouTube channel dedicated to entrepreneurship and eCommerce as well as a podcast dedicated to mental health awareness. When Dave isn’t working his main interests include learning and playing Chess, researching the Crypto and NFT space, and trying to find the nearest beach.