Le Figaro fined €50,000 for lack of full cookie consent

Can you keep up with cookie changes?

Le Figaro fined for lack of full cookie consent

Le Figaro is France’s largest circulation and oldest national daily newspaper, it started publishing in 1826, but times change and it is now one of the most popular French language news websites too.

In Summer 2021, Le Figaro was fined €50,000 (US$60,000) for failing to inform its website visitors about all the cookies placed on their devices & provide adequate information. Specifically, it was installing third-party advertising cookies without the users’ consent.

The French data protection regulator, the CNIL imposed the fines after checks showed that lefigaro.fr installed these cookies during 2020 and 2021.

The EU’s GDPR and ePrivacy Directive together define the use and management of cookies. Earlier this year, the CNIL released questions and answers to aid organizations that comply with the amended guidelines on the use of cookies and similar tracking technologies. To comply with the regulations, you must:

• Provide accurate and specific information about the use of cookies including cookies for which user’s consent is not required and their purpose in plain language before consent is requested
• Ask for and have received users’ consent before the cookies are placed on the machine (unless they are strictly necessary for the website to function)
• Allow users to access your service even if they refuse to allow the use of certain cookies
• Make it as easy for users to withdraw their consent as it was for them to give their consent in the first place
• Document and store consent received from users
• Request new consent, even from previous visitors, each time cookies change