[TeMPOraL]

TL;DR: sites were obliged to provide information and ask for consent when using marketing cookies. That is, cookies required for the site to work (e.g. session) were fine, but tracking/analytics were not. Everyone started to show banners saying "we use cookies [OK] [what cookies?]", users just got used to clicking OK on them, and almost nobody has any clue what this was all about.

You could see the cookie law as a gentle request for Internet businesses to self-regulate and limit unnecessary tracking. It didn't work (I don't know of any case when businesses decided to self-regulate themselves out of potential extra profit), so now GDPR is meant to force companies to stop their user-hostile data abuse.

[Silhouette]

I don't know of any case when businesses decided to self-regulate themselves out of potential extra profit

Hello. I have moral objections to excessive tracking, and none of my businesses use things like retargeting based on tracking pixels, even though this would almost certainly improve the conversion rates for our online ads significantly.

There, now you've seen a case where a business self-regulated out of potential extra profit in exactly this area. :-)

[TeMPOraL]

Thanks!

Sad you don't link to your businesses in your profile; now that you made me want to check them out and maybe reward with money.

[Silhouette]

Ah, the perils of pseudonymity! Thank you for the nice thought all the same. :-)