Microsoft was fined due to cookies (files stored on user computers) being placed onto visitors of Microsoft's Bing search engine site without explicit consent.
What has been detected
Cookies (files from a website to a visitor's computer)
What do they do
Track users activity on a particular site
'Visit our site, so we can find a way to sell you things and spy on you' – Cookie
How can this grab you
Just by visiting the website, as it does not have a way to explicitly reject these cookies.
The cloud is just another person's computer.
This phrase is well known in the cyber security community. If you are visiting a website, this phrase applies just about the same. So careful where you go. As you see even well established 'tested' sites are not 100% clear bout what they do on your computer.
Too good to be true.
After Microsoft was asked about this incident, they claimed it was fixed. However they replied, that some files should not require consent to be placed in visitors computers.🤦♂️
Don’t Forget..
They were only fined 60 million euros (about 64 million dollars). This is not very impactful to an almost 1.8 Trillion dollar corporation. For violating protection laws. Only after they were caught.