France slaps Microsoft with €60m fine for placing ad cookies on users' devices ‘without their consent’

France's privacy watchdog has fined Microsoft 60 million euros for imposing advertising cookies on its users.

As reported by France 24, the fine relates specifically to Microsoft's search engine Bing, which France's National Commission for Technology and Freedoms (CNIL) said was not set up to allow users to refuse cookies as simply as accepting them

The French regulator of personal data said that when users visited Bing "cookies were deposited on their terminal without their consent, while these cookies were used, among others, for advertising purposes." CNIL added further that there was "no button allowing to refuse the deposit of cookies as easily as accepting it."

Recently, CNIL has been cracking down on big tech companies that breach these laws. Last year, the organisation handed out fines worth €210 million for the same issue of not allowing users to refuse cookies as simply as accepting them. In response to that fine, Google said it would rectify its practices, stating "We are committed to implementing new changes, as well as to working actively with CNIL in response to its decision."

Rick has been fascinated by PC gaming since he was seven years old, when he used to sneak into his dad's home office for covert sessions of Doom. He grew up on a diet of similarly unsuitable games, with favourites including Quake, Thief, Half-Life and Deus Ex. Between 2013 and 2022, Rick was games editor of Custom PC magazine and associated website bit-tech.net. But he's always kept one foot in freelance games journalism, writing for publications like Edge, Eurogamer, the Guardian and, naturally, PC Gamer. While he'll play anything that can be controlled with a keyboard and mouse, he has a particular passion for first-person shooters and immersive sims.