The French National Commission for Informatics and Liberties (CNIL), the privacy and data protection regulator, found after investigations that the websites of Facebook.com, Google.fr and Youtube. com provide a button for users to accept cookies as soon as they are on a page of the domain, without offering the same facility to refuse them, either in the form of a button or warning with which the user can have options against storing any of their information that is linked to the device they use, their account or their IP address, this being a lack of freedom of consent; which constitutes an infringement of article 82 of the French Data Protection Act.
As a consequence of this infringement, the CNIL fined Facebook sixty (60) million euros and Google one hundred and fifty (150) million euros, and ordered them to comply with the law within three (3) months.
In addition to the fines, the national commission (CNIL) has ordered the various companies to make available to internet users located in France, within the same period (three months), a means of rejecting cookies that is as simple as the existing means of accepting them. Should any company fail to comply with this agreement, it will be subject to a payment of one hundred thousand (100,000) euros per day of delay. This is to ensure their freedom of consent.
On 31 March 2021, the deadline for companies to take action on these changes expired and since then the national commission has taken close to one hundred (100) corrective actions to enforce the rule.
