You’re on your phone trying to check an article a friend has sent you, or quickly looking up info about an event that’s happening this weekend. And there it is: a gigantic cookie banner, a privacy notice that blocks your screen with a big, visible “ACCEPT” button. This is what the AdTech industry considers consent, and how companies like Quantcast end up claiming that their consent rate is over 90 percent. We think there something deeply wrong with that.
Nudging users to consent… Globally
Cookie banners exist because EU laws require websites and apps to ask users if they agree to most cookies and similar technologies (e.g. web beacons, Flash cookies, etc.) before the site starts to use them. (These rules are under reform and we’re fighting hard to ensure they include strong and better protections, despite opposition from companies.)
For consent to be valid, it must constitute a real meaningful indication of the individual’s wishes and meet conditions such as being free, informed and specific.
However, that’s not how it often works in practice. Cookie banners are often provided by Consent Management Platforms (CMP), such as Quantcast or Oath, who are betting on the fact that you will never bother to look past the “I ACCEPT” or “OK” button. Only some CMPs allow publishers to decide if they want to show an equally big “I REFUSE” button to give their users a real choice. More often than not, the consent process is designed to be as opaque, unpractical and time-consuming as possible – just to make you click “ACCEPT”. So called “dark patterns”.
What few people know is that this “consent” is often interpreted as “Global Consent”, a concept which assumes that if you accept being tracked on one website you “consent” to tracking across the web – as this “consent” is replicated throughout the supply chain.