The Biggest Financial Penalty Ever Issued by the French Data Protection Agency (CNIL)

On December 7, 2020, the CNIL sanctioned GOOGLE LLC (60 million EUR) and GOOGLE IRELAND (40 million EUR) for the storage of advertising trackers (cookies) on users’ devices without (i) their prior consent and (ii) proper information.

The CNIL also ordered these companies to comply with French data protection Act within 3 months from the notification of this decision with a late penalty of 100.000 EUR per day: a banner (describing the purposes of cookies for which a prior consent is required, as well as the means to reject them) will have to be featured on the home page of the French version of the search engine.

The time limit to appeal CNIL’s decision (before the highest French administrative court) is 4 months from the notification of the decision to the parties.

The decision can be found here https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/cnil/id/CNILTEXT000042635706