EDIT: I didn’t realize the anger this would bring out of people. It was supposed to be a funny meme based on recent real-life situations I’ve encountered, not an attack on the EU.
I appreciate the effort of the EU cookie laws. The practice of them just doesn’t live up to the theory of the law. Shady companies are always going to find a way to be shady.
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Not allowing users to access a service at all unless they accept cookies is often against GDPR. See: Can we use ‘cookie walls’?.
To quote:
In some circumstances, this approach is inappropriate; for example, where the user or subscriber has no genuine choice but to sign up. This is because the UK GDPR says that consent must be freely given.
If your use of a cookie wall is intended to require, or influence, users to agree to their personal data being used by you or any third parties as a condition of accessing your service, then it is unlikely that user consent is considered valid.
The key is that individuals are provided with a genuine free choice; consent should not be bundled up as a condition of the service unless it is necessary for that service.
These cookie banners often violate all sorts of GDPR rules even more explicitly than this example. For example did you know it’s not allowed to have pre-ticked boxes on cookie popups for non-essential cookies?
IIRC the EU also ruled that burying the rejection options under additional links counts as a violation. Hence why Google now has a Reject button next to the accept button. Most sites still do that.
Nearly all of these are illegal, but sadly there is little enforcement when it comes to this. (Tracking must be opt-in, not opt-out. Ignoring a banner must be interpreted as declining. Opting out must be a simple option, not navigating a complex and misleading menus. The users choice applies to any form of tracking, not just cookies…)
That’s literally the point though…
