LinkedIn Users Lose Cookie Lawsuit After Giving Consent

By Netvora Tech News

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A Dutch court has ruled in favor of LinkedIn, dismissing a lawsuit filed by two users who claimed the platform placed tracking cookies on their devices without their consent. The court found that the users had indeed given their consent for the placement of tracking cookies through their LinkedIn privacy settings. The two users had argued that LinkedIn violated the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by placing tracking cookies without their prior consent. They demanded that LinkedIn immediately delete the cookies and stop collecting personal data related to the cookies. However, during the court proceedings, it became clear that the users had given their consent for the placement and reading of all cookies, including those for advertising activities on LinkedIn. The consent form asked, "Do you agree that LinkedIn and third parties can use cookies to deliver relevant ads (including job postings) to you on and off our services, and to measure the display and effectiveness of the ads?" The users had given their consent for all cookies before conducting their research on August 12, 2024, but failed to mention this in their lawsuit. The judge ruled that it is not plausible that the users were unaware that the given consent also applied to other advertisements beyond job postings and to websites of third-party parties. The judge noted that the consent form explicitly stated that the consent was not limited to LinkedIn and job postings. The users' argument that the sliders to give consent were automatically set to "on" and they had to manually switch them off to refuse consent was also deemed unconvincing by the judge. The court found that the "evidence" provided by the users showing that LinkedIn placed tracking cookies without their consent was not credible, given that they themselves had given consent for the placement of both functional cookies and cookies for personalized advertising. As a result, the two users must pay the court costs of LinkedIn, which amount to €3,642 per user.