Wow, finally. This would be a major quality of life update for browsing the web. As others have stated, not all sites merit the same preferences. Hopefully they can adapt a middleground of default settings with the ability to customize site by site.
I do not want the gas station, or the airplane I'm on, spying on me to build relevant advertising. That is the end game of "relevant ads": my gas pump already serves me ads, the airplane I'm on serves me ads, my own car now (via a software update that occurred after purchase) serves me ads. Monitors now serve ads. TVs are abusing people's Internet connections, which isn't ads, but it's basically the same problem: if I can abuse the customer without consequence, why shouldn't I?
Just no. The problem is, I as a consumer cannot vote with my wallet: companies can and will go "I could take your money, and earn $X, or I could do that and ads and earn $X + $Y."; there is not reason for them to choose the former, and most markets are so concentrated (e.g., airlines) that there is not ample competition for the market to provide ample "vote with wallet" choices. Further, in the car example, it's just bait and switch: even when I think I can vote with my wallet, the company can just alter the terms of the deal, knowing full well the switching price of a car makes me subservient to them.
Why? Plenty of websites operate just fine with no or near-zero ads. Just look at the one you are currently on!
And what's with confusing "relevant ads" with "privacy-invading targeted ads"? There's still plenty of ads in print media, on television, and on billboards: none of them are invading my privacy, yet they still manage to be relevant by choosing a medium with a certain target demographic. Websites used to do the same, there's no technical reason we can't return to this.
Of course it is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43595269
Any future law in regards to this will likely just lead to the companies that already got consent (companies you already have accounts with) becoming even deeper entrenched.
Non targeted ads pay a small percentage of targeted ads.
They did not read the text to agree.
It was the fastest way to get the banner to go away. Sometimes they force you to confirm multiple times if you click ”none” or ”minimal”.
In the UK a few news sites have changed cookie banners to "you can accept and see this stuff for free, or you can sign up for a subscription, which would you prefer?". It's the only time I hit accept (and then clear browser history).
If blanket preferences from browser signals became the norm, a segment might open up where you would configure preferences and a data broker would make sure you get something in return for your data. At minimum it might force paywalled publishers to consider that as a "lite" subscription option.
ads don't require invasve and pervasive tracking
Advertisers are willing to pay more for privacy-invading ads because they believe they are more effective. If privacy-invading ads were illegal they'd just go back to context-dependent ads like they have been using for the thousands of years before the internet was invented, and after an adjustment period the revenue will just bounce back to where it was before.
Most advertisers know this already. If privacy-invading ads were so effective, why are all the major brands now using influencers to market their products? Why go through the effort of finding a specific Instagram channel which might be a good fit and convincing the operator to enter a brand deal, when you could also just directly pay Instagram for a highly-targeted ad one swipe away?
That's what the tracking industry keeps telling you with zero evidence it's true.
And then there are studies like this one: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016781162 which say that targeted ads need to be 100% to 700% more effective to be as profitable as non-targeted ads
(see e.g. https://iapp.org/news/a/cjeu-clarifies-cookie-consent-requir... https://www.edpb.europa.eu/news/edpb-consent-or-pay-models-s... )
Again, that is not a requirement. If your argument is that they give us content for free because of ads, ads don't require pervasive and invasive tracking. Or hiding stuff behind paywalls (since ads pay for it).
Im pretty sure if a company said something like "Here have free netflix for life, as long as you install this browser plugin that provides us with information about your shopping habits" millions of people would bite their hand off.