The Commission Nationale de L'informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) noted that users visiting the home page of its Bing search engine did not have a "mechanism to refuse cookies as easily as accepting them."

The authority, which carried out an online audit between September 2020 and May 2021 following a complaint it received in February 2020, stated the tech giant deposited cookies with an aim to serve ads and fight advertising fraud without getting a user's permission beforehand, as is required by law.

Microsoft has been ordered to alter its cookie practices within three months, or risk facing an additional penalty of €60,000 per day of non-compliance following the end of the time period.

Microsoft said that it had already made changes to include an option to reject advertising cookies. It warned that cookies for ad fraud detection shouldn't require consent from those "intending to defraud others."