Paris (AFP)

The editors of Internet sites received Friday the support of the public rapporteur to the Council of State in a litigation opposing them to the CNIL on the question of the cookies, these tracers which are used to track the Net surfers.

The public rapporteur proposes a solution to the judge, but the judge is not obliged to follow his opinion.

The Council of State should make its final decision before two weeks, unless it sends a preliminary question to the European Court of Justice, according to a participant in the file.

The dispute relates to "guidelines" adopted in 2019 by the personal data police, the CNIL, on the use of cookies, and based in particular on the new European Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

According to these guidelines, publishers cannot prohibit internet users who refuse cookies to protect their privacy or as opposed to advertising targeting from accessing their site.

It is the practice of + Cookie wall +, by analogy to + Pay wall + which requires paying to access the content.

But the public rapporteur, Alexandre Lallet, considered that the Cnil went too far on this point compared to the European and national legislations in force.

Certainly, the GDPR requires that the consent given by the user to these famous cookies is "free". But it would be "risky" to conclude that Internet users would be systematically "deprived of their freedom" if they were barred from accessing a website, defended Mr. Lallet.

"An inconvenience" like the deprivation of access to the site is not necessarily "a prejudice", according to him, because the Internet user has the choice to go to other similar sites.

The final decision of the Council of State is eagerly awaited by the media and advertising industry, according to which "billions of euros" in turnover are at stake.

Cookies allow site publishers to accumulate data on Internet users, which are then sold for targeted advertising purposes.

The public rapporteur did not contest the other points of the guidelines of the CNIL, in particular the fact that it must be "as easy to refuse or withdraw consent as to give it."

The Cnil will wait for the decision of the Council of State to publish its "recommendation" (a practical guide for applying the guidelines). The first sanctions for non-compliance with these instructions will only come after a "adaptation period" of six months, the time that the publishers update their sites.

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