A fine imposed by the French organization Data Watchdog

The French privacy police fined Microsoft Corp. $64 million for the way the company handles cookies on its bing.com search engine.

Despite the fact that they were being used for advertising, the French data protection authorities claimed that after performing various checks on the website, they discovered that cookies were being saved on his computer without his consent.

The website was missing a cookie opt-out button.

The lack of a button on the website that would have made it simple for visitors to reject cookies, according to CNIL, was another factor in the decision to punish the technology business.

Microsoft issued a statement saying, “We have worked with CNIL and made significant changes to our cookie policies before this inquiry ever started and continue to respect CNIL’s position on ad fraud.”

The CNIL gave Microsoft three months to abide by its directive to make it simpler to opt-out of cookies, with a €60,000 fine for each day of noncompliance.