Google loses bid to cancel $112 million French fine

France's Supreme Administrative Court backed regulators in 2020 who criticized the search giant for automatically placing trackers - often used to collect data for advertising purposes - in the devices of google.fr users as soon as they access the website.

In their decision, the judges of the Conseil d'Etat found that the CNIL was right to consider that Google's behavior amounted to a lack of clear information and competition for users. It also represented a failure to obtain their prior consent and an incomplete cookie blocking mechanism.

The Alphabet-owned company and the French privacy watchdog CNIL have sounded the alarm twice in two years about the use of cookies to track users' online movements.

Earlier this month, CNIL set a new record by fining Google €150 million for not giving users an easy way out of its cookies.

A company spokesman said it had implemented the changes required by the CNIL in 2021. He added that the company remains committed to constructive engagement with the regulator.

Data protection regulators in the European Union have been granted unprecedented fine powers. This is since the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation came into force in May 2018.

The General Data Protection Regulation allows them to impose penalties of up to 4% of the company's annual global sales.

Google's latest fines are based on another set of rules governing the use of online trackers. This comes in an even fiercer climate of regulatory scrutiny for tech giants around the world.
Google placed files on users' devices without their consent

Earlier this month, the company filed an appeal with the European Union's Supreme Court. The appeal came against an earlier decision to uphold a $2.8 billion antitrust fine, the company's second attempt to overturn the penalty.

European Union Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager fined the world's most popular search engine in 2017.

The reason was that it was using its own price comparison service to gain an unfair advantage over smaller European competitors.

The case was the first of three that led to an increase in European antitrust fines against Google to €8.25 billion over the past decade.

In November, the General Court of the European Union rejected the company's appeal against the fine. It said the European Commission had correctly concluded that the company's practices were harmful to competition.

The Luxembourg judges rejected the company's argument that the existence of the trading platforms demonstrated strong competition.