A commercial court in Brussels, Belgium, ordered on Monday that Facebook would have 48 hours to cease all online tracking of their Belgian users when those users were not signed in to the social media platform. The company can’t gather and record browsing data any longer unless users are actually logged in to Facebook.

If Facebook continues to collect the data without the users’ consent, the company will be subject to a fine of $269,000 a day. Facebook’s public response from a spokesperson was, “We used the data cookie for more than 5 years to keep Facebook secure for 1.5 billion people around the world.”

Facebook made no other comments or references to the court’s decision. Facebook has never denied it doesn’t track users. It has admitted that it places a data cookie into the person’s browser if they have ever visited the social media site. The cookie then tracks where on the World Wide Web that particular person decides to go. Facebook, Google, and others sell this data and information to other companies. What people do online is marketing gold to just about every company in the world.

The official line from Facebook, and others, is that they do it for the protection and security of their users from malware attacks and spam. The company states that it only uses the data cookie to track particular browsers that are operated automatically by machines. Facebook states that it is from these browsers that hackers find their way onto Facebook pages and accounts. The company also said that it destroys gathered data after ten days.

The Belgian court had started its actions against Facebook in June. They said that the company collects the data without the users permission and doesn’t inform them as to how their personal information will be used or disseminated. The court really wants to know how Facebook tracks people through “share” and “like” buttons at websites around the world.