I hate the banners, and I am a major privacy advocate.
The web has gotten so much uglier as a result of GDPR.
The web has gotten so much uglier as a result of GDPR.
We measure our success based on enquiries, orders and so on, not the number of hits to the website.
I hate the banners and the ugliness too but they are designed precisely to do that, and adtech maneuvers to ensure the hate is directed at the wrong source - the lawmakers instead of the people doing all the spying.
GDPR 1.1 should address all that - no legitimate interest exclusion of any kind, ONE SINGLE CLICK to reject all, no witholding service at ANY degree unless consent is granted, a 3rd option (I offer to pay to not be tracked), and a mandatory disclaimer on the cookie banner saying in clear terms: "Tracking is spying. If we were not tracking you and invading your privacy, this banner would not be necessary at all". Maybe even revive the "do not track" header by mandating that websites react to it accordingly, obey it 100%, not even show a banner if the header already tells them what to do, and ask users if they want this set or not, without a default value which would give an excuse for complaint from the people spying on you.
The end result is still the same, even with GDPR 1.1, another interstitial barrier between the user and whatever site they are trying to reach imposed by a poorly planned attempt to protect user privacy while simultaneously enabling the predatory companies who violate said privacy to continue business as usual.
The cookie banner will remain on the vast majority of sites, and users will spam click past it as they have been trained to do.
I remember thinking "ok once this hits an actual web spec, we should see this built into browsers, and sent as headers or something"
Nope
In contrast, the GDPR demands that you properly ask for consent if you want to process somebody's personal information, inform them why that is necessary, and only process the data if they agree to the processing.
There is clearly a difference here, and IMHO the EU is quite correct here.
If it wasn't cookies it would be something else.
I know this sounds all lofty and Brussels ivory-tower-ish, but I'm absolutely convinced it's the only sensible way to deal with personal information - even if American companies insist on forcing a new normal of lacking privacy on all of us.