[xienze]

> for example having a small widget in the footer or elsewhere on my site

And next thing you know, there'd be people complaining about "dark patterns" where the small widget is designed to be very easy to overlook and (more importantly) someone may inadvertently use the site briefly before noticing that they can turn off tracking. Whoops, you just got tracked.

A modal makes it obvious what's happening on the site and gives you a chance to opt-out before proceeding. There really is no better way to do it that's going keep everyone happy. People just don't want to admit that the only way to properly implement this feature is to annoy people.

[Y-bar]

I can’t emphasise enough how much you are missing the point of the law! The law requires me to NOT track you unless I get specific, informed, consent.

The fundamental and default part of the law is to NOT track. Tracking by default (opt-out) is illegal. A modal is just a way to annoy you until you consent against your will.

https://gdpr.eu/article-6-how-to-process-personal-data-legal...

[crubier]

> unless I get specific, informed, consent.

Explain how you'd do that without a banner or similarly annoying UX

[Y-bar]

I don’t know where to begin explaining UX to someone who struggles with the basic concept of consent.

[crubier]

It’s simple, informing implies taking screen space, expressing consent implies user action. So overall it HAS to be similarly annoying to a cookie banner.

Of course if your answer is “people should just stop using cookies” then I have bad news for you.