• Bing, according to CNIL, made it more difficult to reject the cookie deposit.
• The French regulatory body said that Microsoft made money off of cookie information.
• The CNIL penalised Google and Facebook last year.

The US IT giant Microsoft was hit with a fine of EUR 60 million ($64 million, or around Rs. 530 crore), according to France's privacy watchdog, who announced the decision on Thursday. The National Commission for Technology and Freedoms (CNIL), which levied the biggest fine in 2022, claimed that Microsoft's search engine Bing did not have a framework in place . 

According to the French authority, investigations revealed that 'cookies were put on users' terminals when they visited this site without their authorization, and these cookies were exploited. The research also discovered that there was no button that made it possible to reject the deposit of cookies as easily as approving it. 

The CNIL asserted that the penalty was partially justified by the advertising revenue generated by the company using data collected through cookies, which are little data files used to track internet activity. According to Bing, users could instantaneously accept all cookies by clicking a button, but they had to click twice to reject them. The business has three months to fix the problem or face a further fine of EUR 60,000 (approximately Rs. 52 lakh) per day late.

Microsoft Ireland, the location of the company's European headquarters, was hit with the penalties. Microsoft claimed in a statement that, 'Even before this inquiry commenced, we initiated critical modifications to our cookie policies.' The French watchdog's 'stance will affect French individuals and enterprises,' it added, adding, 'We continue to respectfully be concerned with the CNIL's attitude on advertising fraud.' 

When a user visits a website, cookies are downloaded to their computer, enabling web browsers to store information about the user's session. Because they enable the personalisation of advertising, which serves as the primary source of revenue for businesses like Facebook and Google, they are tremendously helpful for online platforms. 

However, privacy advocates have long resisted. For identical violations involving their use of cookies, Google and Facebook were penalised by the French authorities with fines of EUR 150 million (approximately Rs. 1,300 crore) and EUR 60 million (about Rs. 530 crore), respectively. 

The two businesses are also under investigation for their practise of transmitting the personal information of EU citizens to servers in the US. Additionally, tech behemoths are still dealing with numerous issues in Europe.
Early this month, Europe's data watchdog enforced legally binding judgements on Meta, the company that owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, regarding the handling of personal data. 

The European Data Protection Supervisor did not provide specifics of its decision or suggested penalties in a statement, just stating that the orders related to Meta's usage of data for targeted advertising. The most recent instance comes in response to allegations made by the privacy advocacy group Noyb that three of Meta's apps do not adhere to the stringent data protection laws in Europe.