The French Council of State on Friday rejected Google's appeal against two fines, totaling 100 million euros, levied for failing to comply with its obligations on 'cookie' practices, used for user-targeted advertising.
In a statement, France's highest administrative court cited by Lusa considered that the National Commission for Informatics and Liberties (CNIL, in the French acronym) is competent to intervene against the US tech giant, which imposed those sanctions in December 2020.
Thus, the French Council of State further confirmed the findings produced at the time by CNIL, that Google did not provide "clear and complete information" to those accessing its 'site', that it did not obtain users' prior consent, and that the system did not object to advertising 'cookies'.
In the analysis carried out in March 2020 by this control agency revealed that by accessing the 'google' search engine, seven cookies were automatically installed on the user's computer, and that four of these had a purely advertising function.
Moreover, the French Council of State pointed out that the company modified its practices in August 2020, but nevertheless continued "without explicitly informing the user about the purposes of its 'cookies' and how to reject them," reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
CNIL also accused the US giant that even when ad personalization was disabled, one of the advertising 'cookies' still remained stored on the computer and continued to record data for the search engine.
For the Council of State, the fines imposed do not exceed the legal limit and "are not disproportionate" in view of the "important benefits" obtained thanks to the data collected by those tools and Google's dominant position in France (about 47 million users and a market share of over 90%).
In January 2019, the CNIL had already imposed a €50 million fine on Google for lack of transparency, incorrect information and lack of consent in personalized advertising.
Earlier this year, the CNIL fined Google and Facebook €150 million and €60 million, respectively, for their 'cookie' practices, for not allowing them to refuse cookies "as simply" as accepting them.