The French regulator, the CNIL, said it fined Google $120.8 million for storing advertising-related identifiers on millions of users’ computers before asking consent.

Photo: Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press

PARIS—France’s privacy watchdog issued more than $163 million in fines to Alphabet Inc.’s GOOG -1.89% Google and Amazon.com Inc. AMZN -2.30% for improperly collecting information about website visitors, taking a hard line as European regulators haggle over such sanctions.

The French regulator, the CNIL, said Thursday that it fined Google €100 million, equivalent to $120.8 million—a record for a privacy fine in France—for storing advertising-related identifiers on millions of users’ computers before asking for individuals’ consent, and without explaining sufficiently how the identifiers, called cookies, were used. It fined Amazon €35 million for the same violations.

Since the CNIL informed Google and Amazon of its investigations earlier this year, each company has updated its website in Europe to stop placing advertising cookies before asking for consent, the CNIL said Thursday. But the regulator added that the companies still don’t properly explain how the cookies are used, and ordered both companies to better inform users within three month—or face further fines of €100,000 a day.

Google stands by its privacy efforts in Europe, a company spokesman said, and is considering whether to appeal the CNIL decision. The decision “overlooks these efforts and doesn’t account for the fact that French rules and regulatory guidance are uncertain and constantly evolving,” he said.

An Amazon spokesman said the company disagrees with the decision, and complies with privacy laws. “We continuously update our privacy practices to ensure that we meet the evolving needs and expectations of customers and regulators,” he said. He didn’t reply when asked if the company plans to appeal.

The Justice Department is filing an antitrust lawsuit against Google. Here’s how the tech giant ended up in the crosshairs of federal regulators. WSJ’s Jason Bellini reports. Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The CNIL’s fines—among the largest ever levied in the European Union for privacy violations—come as regulators have been fighting over how much to fine companies under the bloc’s strict new privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation. The first cross-border case involving a U.S. tech company, has been stuck in months of debate among regulators over how much to fine Twitter Inc. for its handling of a data breach disclosed last year, though a decision is expected soon. Other cases involving big U.S. tech companies are expected to be debated among EU regulators in coming months.

Some privacy activists have said that EU regulators should move faster to punish alleged violations. One factor slowing the cases is that the GDPR requires EU privacy regulators to submit cross border cases to its counterparts, and to resolve all their disputes at a pan-European board, a process that can take many months.

To issue its record fine, the CNIL sidestepped the GDPR, under which cases involving Google are led by Ireland’s privacy regulator and those involving Amazon are led by Luxembourg’s—because those are the countries where the companies have their EU headquarters.

Instead, the CNIL levied Thursday’s fines under an older EU rule called the ePrivacy directive, which has no power-sharing mechanism like the GDPR—though an update to the law is being debated in Brussels. The CNIL has been applying the French version of the ePrivacy directive law to include strict consent rules for the placement of cookies on devices, leading to fights with website owners over how to implement it.

Write to Sam Schechner at [email protected]

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This post first appeared on wsj.com

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