Microsoft Corp. was hit with a €60 million ($64 million) fine by France’s privacy watchdog over the way it manages cookies on its bing.com search engine and was ordered to make them more customer friendly.

Microsoft Corp. was hit with a €60 million ($64 million) fine by France’s privacy watchdog over the way it manages cookies on its bing.com search engine and was ordered to make them more customer friendly.

CNIL, France’s data protection authority said it carried out several checks on the website in September 2020 and May 2021 and “found that when a user visited this site, cookies were deposited on his terminal without his consent, even though they were used for advertising purposes.”

The website also lacked a button that allows users to opt out of cookies in an easy manner, Cnil said, leading to its decision to fine the tech company, according to a statement on Thursday.

The latest penalty follow probes by the French watchdog looking at companies’ compliance with new rules on cookies, which are tracking devices placed on people’s computers. Alphabet Inc.’s Google was earlier this year slapped with a record French fine of €150 million and Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook was fined €60 million over the way they manage cookies.

“We fully cooperated with the CNIL and introduced key changes to our cookie practices even before this investigation started,” Microsoft said in a statement. “We continue to respectfully be concerned with the CNIL’s position on advertising fraud. We believe the CNIL’s position will harm French individuals and businesses by allowing fraud to spread online.”

CNIL gave Microsoft three months to comply with its order to make it easier to opt out of cookies. Failure to do so would lead to a penalty payment of €60,000 per day of delay, said the regulator.

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