> It's a shame there aren't more big fines for shitty sites, like stackoverflow.com, that punish people who don't accept all cookies by prompting on every visit.

Agreed. The way the EU has handled this is naive at best.

> These large sites know exactly what they're doing. They're hoping people will become fed up enough to just accept, or they're hoping there'll be enough accidents where people click "Accept all". It's rather shitty.

Yes, and there need to be new regulations to prevent them from doing this. Something like:

(1) all web browsers should have a setting allowing users to accept or reject advertising/tracking cookies.

(2) this must default to not accepting them.

(3) in headers of http GET/POST requests, if the user allows advertising/tracking cookies, it should indicate this; if the user doesn't allow such cookies, it should be silent.

(4) all websites would be forbidden from using advertising/tracking cookies unless explicitly permitted

(5) all websites and web browsers would be banned from nagging the user or giving them a worse user experience for not allowing advertising/tracking cookies

(6) The spirit of these regulations is that users need do nothing and they will automatically have a tracking-free experience; any work-around by companies attempting to find a loophole in this is a violation of the regulations.

(7) Violation of any of the above would result in heavy fines; and if infractions continue, further crippling fines would be levied.