Cookiescanner: An Automated Tool for Detecting and Evaluating GDPR Consent Notices on Websites

The enforcement of the GDPR led to the widespread adoption of consent notices, colloquially known as cookie banners. Studies have shown that many website operators do not comply with the law and track users prior to any interaction with the consent notice, or attempt to trick users into giving consent through dark patterns. Previous research has relied on manually curated filter lists or automated detection methods limited to a subset of websites, making research on GDPR compliance of consent notices tedious or limited. We present cookiescanner, an automated scanning tool that detects and extracts consent notices via various methods and checks if they offer a decline option or use color diversion.