The Cnil has lifted its injunction against Facebook, believing that the social network has responded to its requests. But the site could soon have new problems with the supervisory authority.
Facebook can momentarily blow. This Thursday, July 28, the National Commission for Computing and Freedoms (Cnil) announced that the procedure opened against the American social network is now closed. The supervisory body considers that the community site has met its requirements. However, the company is not quite out of the woods yet.
The independent administrative authority notes that Facebook has finally set up a button making it very easy to refuse cookies. The Cnil has been fighting for several years to ensure that the refusal of cookies is as simple as their acceptance by Internet users. A long-term job: the sites are dragging their feet to get in line.
A button to refuse cookies on Facebook
Anyone visiting Facebook can now see the presence of an informative insert with two action buttons. The first is an opt-out button that is limited to essential cookies. The second is a button that allows essential and optional cookies. This insert does not appear if you have already visited Facebook and approved one or the other scenario.
Cookies, also called connection cookies, are computer files which are placed on the Internet user’s device (such as a computer, a smartphone, a tablet) by the site he is visiting, via his web browser. The role of these cookies is varied: audience monitoring, personalization of the site according to the tastes of the Internet user, memorization of the shopping cart, advertisements, etc.
It is essentially the cookies used for targeted advertising that concentrate the main criticisms, because they act as trackers. Some cookies are required to make the site work properly — that’s why they’re called essential. Others are optional and require public consent before being filed.
If the presence of this new button was welcomed by the Cnil, which allowed Facebook to extricate itself from the injunction to which it had been subject since December 2021, everything is not yet settled. The Commission must now analyze the content of this cookie consent window. In short, is the insert compliant?
In particular, the explanations given to Internet users must be “ clear and complete » and that each purpose has a separate consent, so as to give the Internet user the possibility of accepting certain uses and refusing others. And in this regard, it is better that Facebook is in the nails: a misstep would trigger a new procedure and, perhaps, a new fine.
