”Cookie banner” is a misnomer. These consent popups are usually asking for you to consent to having hundreds if not thousands of companies build and sell a profile of you. They will combine your behavior and device data from various sources, identify you across platforms by linking device IDs, and ultimately sell your privacy to the highest bidder.

Typically, you can’t even turn these permissions off, nor can you deny consent or object to their purposes: they are increasingly claiming they are for ”fraud prevention” or some other technical purpose which doesn’t land under consent or the ”legitimate interest” umbrella.