Google, Amazon fined $163 million by French privacy watchdog

Paris: France’s data privacy watchdog said Thursday it has fined Google 100 millions euros ($121 million) and Amazon 35 million euros ($42 million) for breaching the country’s rules on advertising cookies. The CNIL said in a statement that the French websites of both companies did not request prior consent from internet users about trackers, or cookies, that were automatically saved on computers for advertising purposes.

It said Google and Amazon also failed to provide clear information to users about the purposes of these cookies and how they might refuse them.