France fines TikTok $5.4 million for online tracking shortcomings

TikTok logos are seen in this illustration taken February 15, 2022. Picture taken February 15, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

PARIS (Reuters) -France on Thursday fined TikTok 5 million euros ($5.4 million) for shortcomings linked to the short video platform's handling of online tracking known as "cookies", which the ByteDance-owned company said it had now addressed.

French data protection watchdog CNIL said that its investigation only concerned the website tiktok.com and not the service's much more heavily used smartphone applications.