Google Penalized $379 Million by French Authorities for Violating Cookie Consent Regulations
The French data protection authority has imposed significant fines on Google and Chinese e-commerce giant Shein for breaching cookie regulations. Google was fined $379 million (€325 million), while Shein faced a penalty of $175 million (€150 million). Both companies were found to have set advertising cookies on users’ browsers without obtaining proper consent, as stated by the National Commission on Informatics and Liberty (CNIL). Shein has reportedly updated its systems to align with regulatory requirements, although it plans to appeal the decision. The CNIL highlighted that Google encouraged users to select cookies for personalised advertisements, failing to adequately inform them that cookie acceptance was a prerequisite for accessing its services. This lack of informed consent constitutes a violation of the French Data Protection Act (Article 82).
In addition to the cookie violations, Google has been scrutinised for placing advertisements within Gmail’s “Promotions” and “Social” tabs, which also requires explicit user consent under the French Postal and Electronic Communications Code (CPCE). The CNIL has mandated that Google must rectify its systems within six months or face daily penalties of €100,000. This ruling follows a U.S. jury’s finding that Google violated user privacy by collecting data despite users opting out of Web & App Activity tracking, resulting in $425 million in compensatory damages. In a related case, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that Disney agreed to pay $10 million to settle allegations of collecting personal data from children on YouTube without parental consent, violating the U.S. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA). The settlement requires Disney to notify parents before collecting data from children under 13 and to ensure that its YouTube videos are correctly labelled as “Made for Kids.
Categories: Data Privacy Violations, Cookie Consent Regulations, Children’s Online Privacy
Tags: Data Protection, Google, Shein, Cookies, Consent, CNIL, Regulation, Privacy, FTC, COPPA