Many sites show cookie consent when they don't have to.

You don't have to show cookie consent when you use cookies purely for "technical stuff" - e.g cookie based authentication.

>Operational cookies

>There are some cookies that we have to include in order for certain web pages to function. For this reason, they do not require your consent. In particular:

>authentication cookies

>technical cookies required by certain IT systems

https://ec.europa.eu/info/cookies_en

Consent is only necessary for cookies that aren't in the interest of the user (session cookies, other cookies set to fulfil user requests).

You only "have to" press these because a lot of websites decide they'd rather torture users with popups than stop tracking personal data.

I've never even been to Europe, and I still get them. What are we Americans, chopped liver?

I recommend the Consent-O-Matic browser extension and failing that, the "I don't care about cookies" browser extension.

https://github.com/cavi-au/Consent-O-Matic

https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/

Maybe because everyone (According to Facebook anyway, which is very not true) there wants to track - GDPR ain't really about the cookies, it's about the mismatch of corporate America's desire to track versus Europe's desire to not get tracked. Heck, American companies are breaking American law, at least in California.