It was reported this morning that Alphabet Inc.’s Google was slapped with a record French fine of 150 million euros (US$170 million) by the nation’s privacy watchdog, together with a 60 million-euro fine (US$68 million) for Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook, over the way the companies manage cookies.

CNIL, France’s data protection authority, on Thursday issued the companies with a three-month ultimatum "to provide internet users located in France with a means of refusing cookies as simple as the existing means of accepting them, in order to guarantee their freedom of consent." 

CNIL said in the statement that "Failing to do so will come with the risk of an additional daily fine of 100,000 euros (US$113,000)." For more on this, read the full BNN Bloomberg report.