Yahoo fined 10 million euros by France for cookie abuses.
France’s data protection authority said Thursday it has fined Yahoo 10 million euros for failing to respect users’ refusal to use Internet tracking “cookies” or suggesting they would lose access to email accounts if they did.
The $10.9 million fine imposed in December came after the CNIL authority received complaints and conducted investigations in October 2020 and June 2021.
It found that visitors to the main Yahoo.com site who clicked a button to reject cookies still ended up with about 20 digital trackers stored for advertising purposes.
In addition, Yahoo Mail users who tried to withdraw their consent to the use of cookies were warned that they would no longer have access to messages or other Yahoo services.
“To determine the amount of the fine of the Restricted Committee, the Restricted Committee took into account the fact that the company did not respect the choice of Internet users regarding cookies and that it took measures to get them to withdraw their consent to the storage of cookies. The CNIL said.
Since the entry into force of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018, Internet companies have faced stricter rules for obtaining user consent for the use of their personal data.
France has fined companies such as Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple and TikTok a total of nearly 400 million euros for violations.
