CNIL FINES THE AMAZON EUROPE CORE ABOUT ADVERTISING COOKIES

10.12.2020

French National Data Protection Commission (“Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés – “CNIL”) announced that the Commission fined the Amazon Europe Core company for having placed advertising cookies on users' computers, without obtaining prior consent and without providing adequate information.

CNIL explained that an investigation had been made on the website of the company. After the investigation, the commission noticed that when a user visited the website, cookies were automatically placed on his/her computer and some of these cookies were used for advertising purposes. On the other hand, the cookies which are not essential to the service can only be placed after the user has expressed his or her consent. Deposition of the cookies at the same time as arriving on the website is naturally incompatible with a prior consent.

Also, CNIL noted that the information given to the user was unclear and insufficient. The banner displayed by the company was stating “By using this website, you accept our use of cookies allowing to offer and improve our services. Read More.”, and only contained general and approximate information for the users. Besides that, it was difficult to understand for users that cookies placed on their computer were mainly using to display personalized ads and the banner was not explaining to the user that they could refuse these cookies and how to do it.

For all those reasons, CNIL imposed a fine of 35 million Euros on the company Amazon Europe Core. In addition to the financial penalty, it also ordered that the company have to inform individuals adequately within three months after the notification of the decision. Otherwise, the company must pay a penalty payment of 100 000 Euros for each day of delay.

 

You can find the text of the announcement here.

Should you have any queries and/or remarks, please do not hesitate to contact us. 

 

Kind regards,

Zumbul Attorneys-at-Law

info@zumbul.av.tr