Microsoft Fined ₹530 Crore By French Privacy Surveillance Over Cookies

A French data watchdog fined Microsoft $64 million over the Microsoft handles cookies on its search engine Bing. The watchdog ordered it to make it more user-friendly.

France’s privacy watchdog assessed Microsoft Corp. with a EUR60m ($64 million) penalty for the way it managed cookies on its search engine bing.com. The company was then ordered to make these more user-friendly.

CNIL, France’s data protection authority, stated that it had conducted several checks on the site in September 2020, and May 2021, and found that cookies were placed on the user’s terminal when he visited the site without his consent.

Cnil stated that the website did not have a button that would allow users to opt-out of cookies easily. According to Thursday’s statement, Cnil also fined the tech company.

This latest penalty follows probes by the French watchdog that looked into companies’ compliance to new cookie rules. Cookies are devices that track people’s computer’s movements. 

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Alphabet Inc. was hit with a record French fine for EUR 150 million, while Meta Platforms Inc. was fined EUR60 millions for their management of cookies.

Microsoft released a statement saying that it had fully cooperated with CNIL and made key changes to its cookie practices before the investigation began. 

“We remain respectfully concerned about the CNIL’s position regarding advertising fraud. We feel that the CNIL’s position on advertising fraud will cause harm to French businesses and individuals by allowing fraud online.

Microsoft was given three months by CNIL to comply with its order to make opting out of cookies easier. 

The regulator stated that Microsoft would be penalized for failing to comply with its order to make it easier to opt out of cookies.

Microsoft was also involved in the FTC Activision Blizzard lawsuit. The company presented its reasons for why the $68.7 Billion acquisition should be approved.

Microsoft has apparently filed its response to the US Federal Trade Commission to stop the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by the company.

According to The Verge, ZeniMax’s acquisition of Bethesda is being defended by the company. The company also stated that future titles could only be available for Xbox and PC, according to The Verge.