[dmix]

The complete lack of design standards is what kills the utility.

They should all have 3 buttons: "accept all" or "reject all" or "customize", dead simple. Every time it's a different design, different button text, different options. Usually rejecting = multi layers of options.

A perfect example of good intentions making bad policy.

[jeroenhd]

Making rejecting opt-in cookies more difficult than accepting them is illegal. Fines have already been handed out for this. See https://www.dataprotectionauthority.be/citizen/iab-europe-he... for just one example.

Even Google has a "reject all" button in their cookie prompt these days. If rejecting takes you through multiple layers, consider reporting the website or their tracking partner to your local DPA.

The ad industry is intentionally making their popups as inconvenient as possible. They childishly point to the EU legislation that they "have" to make your life miserable with those popups but they really don't. They can choose to make your life easier, but that threatens their business model of using you and your browser as a source of revenue.

They can simply stop tracking you at all if you send the do not track header. You wouldn't even see the popups! They can even still serve ads, just not the ones based on the profile they've collected.

[worrycue]

I think the categories should be:

- Accept all

- Mandatory for function non-tracking cookies only

- Reject all

There should be a standardised browser accessible interface so browsers can automatically choose the one you want on your behalf based on your browser settings.

[jareklupinski]

> Every time it's a different design, different button text, different options

this is on purpose

if you could commit where the Deny button was to muscle memory, you would click it every time

[vishal0123]

I have hard time believing it is not intentional. I think Europe could easily enforce consistent UI which could be automated through ad blocker, but now they know that most companies would rather stop serving Europe than not track users for ad.

[lillecarl]

I doubt "most companies" would want to lose out on one of the biggest economies on our planet. Some have built unsustainable businesses incompatible with privacy though.

I'm using uBlock and Consent-o-matic to remove as much tracking as possible already.

There's already the "do not track" header that noone respects.

[dmitriid]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35038100