French Data Protection Agency Fines Microsoft $64 Mln Over Cookies

(RTTNews) - French Data Protection Agency CNIL has fined software giant Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) 60 million euros or about $64 million "for not having put in place a mechanism to refuse cookies as easily as accepting them."

According to the regulator, it carried out several checks on Microsoft's bing.com website after receiving complaint about the conditions for the deposit of cookies on the website.

The agency sai dit found that when a user visited that site, cookies were placed on his terminal without his consent while they pursued, inter alia, an advertising objective. It also noted the absence of a button to refuse the deposit of cookies as easily as to accept it.

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.

The company has been given three months to rectify the issue, with a potential further penalty of 60,000 euros per day overdue.