Facebook plans to appeal an order by a court in Belgium that banned it from tracking people who are not signed onto the social networking website.

The dispute largely hinges around Facebook’s use of a special cookie called ‘datr’ that the company claims helps it distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate visits to its website.

“We’ve used the datr security cookie for more than five years to keep Facebook secure for 1.5 billion people around the world,” a Facebook spokesman said Monday. “We will appeal this decision and are working to minimize any disruption to people’s access to Facebook in Belgium.”

The court in Belgium on Monday gave the social networking company 48 hours to stop tracking users that don’t have accounts on the site or risk fines of up to 250,000 euros ($269,000) a day, according to news reports.

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