[Fradow]

6. No, you are not really looking at this issue the right way.

While it has been nicknamed the "Cookie Law", the ePrivacy Directive is about trackers that contains PII (Personally Identifiable Information) and the reason some cookie exist.

On a high-level, the spirit of the law is:

- if the cookie is essential to the site, consent is not needed

- if the cookie doesn't contain PII / isn't used for tracking, it is not impacted by the law, and thus consent is not needed

Now several examples you detailed could be done server-side, without any tracking cookie, or with a cookie if the user is logged (which implies accepting the website conditions and could be deemed essential). In those cases, no consent is needed. If on the other hand you use a tracking cookie, like a Google Analytics tracking cookie, yes consent is needed.