It seems that the bigger companies (BBC, Amazon, etc.) have just gotten away with having a link to their cookies policy in the footer, while the smaller guys (e.g. the web dev place I work at) have been scared into placing often intrusive JS notifications that grab the user's attention needlessly.

If the average user were to even understand what cookies were, I could see at least some reasoning behind the law, but as it stands, it's like having a prompt at the petrol pump that asks you if you consent to something in your fuel that's there to help your engine - most people don't know about it and don't want to be bothered being asked the question in the first place.