French privacy regulator cracks down on Facebook's use of personal data

Site given three months to stop tracking and transferring data to US without consent in first significant action since Safe Harbour pact was struck down

The French data protection authority on Monday gave Facebook three months to stop tracking non-users' web activity without their consent and ordered the social network to stop some transfers of personal data to the US.

The French order is the first significant action to be taken against a company transferring Europeans' data to the US following an EU court ruling last year that struck down an agreement that had been relied on by thousands of companies, including Facebook, to avoid cumbersome EU data transfer rules.