Belgian publisher of Le Soir receives 50,000 euros GDPR fine because of cookie wall – IT Pro – News

The Belgian Data Protection Authority has fined publisher Rossel for placing cookies on the websites of Le Soir, Sud Info and Sudpresse Digital. The sites placed cookies without permission and were not clear about what happened to them.

The fine is for the account of the Belgian media publisher Rossel. The Data Protection Authority looked specifically at the placement and management of cookies on the website lesoir.be, sudinfo.be in sudpressedigital.be† According to the GBA, those websites wrongly placed cookies before the user could give permission. The sites specifically committed five violations of the GDPR. Chief among these is that three websites set 47, 104 and 23 third-party cookies before they could accept them.

It wasn’t just about cookies from advertising services. The websites placed cookies from social media plug-ins and analytical software and did not ask for permission because they felt they were necessary for the service. The GBA disagreed; the websites should also have asked for permission for the analytical and social cookies.

The websites were also unclear with information about which cookies were placed and for how long. In addition, in the cookie pop-up, checks were enabled by default for consent. According to the GBA, this is not active consent.

The GBA handed out a fine of 50,000 euros to the publisher of the websites for those violations. He can still appeal. The investigation into Rossel is part of a much broader investigation that the privacy regulator is now conducting into Belgian media. It is the second fine to be handed out in that investigation. A few weeks ago, publisher Roularta . received also 50,000 euros fine, because of dark patterns in the cookie pop-up on the websites of Knack and Le Vif.

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