For the past year and a half, European internet users have been asked dozens of times a day whether they «accept cookies or not?» due to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Experts and consumer protection associations agree that this practice has failed.
Many citizens blindly click «I agree» when asked, either because they don't understand the fine print or simply don't have time to read the lengthy data protection regulations. «The flood of cookie banners is an unintended side effect of the General Data Protection Regulation,» says German , Social Democrat MEP , Thiemo Velken. .
«Cookies are small sets of data stored by your browser when you visit a website. They also have practical functions. They enable the online store to «remember» which products are in the shopping cart, even though the computer has been switched off in the meantime. Unfortunately, from the consumer's point of view, the inconvenient functions now outweigh the useful ones,» writes the Suddeutsche Zeitung in Munich. In fact, adds the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, «the whole story works like this: It's like a citizen entering a store and security personnel immediately harassing them with questions and asking for signatures: «Can we store your purchases at our checkout?», «Do you agree to camera surveillance?» «Can we greet you by name next time?»
In real life, the citizen would laugh and perhaps ask where the hidden camera was. But as he would leave to go to the store next door and there the security staff would ask him to sign in again. Then all life would be just the Internet,» writes the FAZ, discussing the issue of cookies.
In the digital world, however, users are constantly obliged to provide information about whether they consent to cookies. Otherwise, they cannot continue reading.
«Except that cookies are not cookies, but tokens by which websites determine that the user who just bought a pair of jogging shoes on Amazon is the same user who is now watching a marathon video on YouTube and therefore the ideal candidate for a short promotional film via his latest running app, which he posted on Facebook half an hour later,» the FAZ writes, adding: «Anyone who always agrees to all cookies can assume that at some point many advertising agencies will know him better than he knows himself. There are studies showing that Facebook can predict a person's personality traits based on a few hundred clicks better than their closest relatives.».
They learned about pregnancy from ...cookies
The history of cookies seems Orwellian, as it is dominated by the surveillance and monitoring of the behaviour of the internet user. «Perhaps the worst thing that can happen to you is simply to send a friend an email about how beautiful Egypt is and then be inundated with advertisements for package tours to Sharm El Sheikh on the Internet,» writes the FAZ. The German newspaper reports that the worst case that has come to light is that of a young American woman whose parents learned of her unwanted... pregnancy because the family was receiving ads for... baby food, as daughter searched the topic on Google.
Of course, not all cookies are bad, many are simply necessary so that an online store does not forget what the customer has in his shopping cart on the way to the checkout. But once the customer closes their browser, many large companies delete all the cookies that were used to store these settings. They do this, not because they care about privacy, as they say, but because they don't need cookies in their own product world.
The reaction of the EU
The European Union wants to tackle the frenzy of data collection by companies by requiring them to ask for permission. This has been part of an EU data protection debate since 2009 , but has been ignored in many Member States. In Brussels, they are now planning a new digital market regulation that would ban big companies from asking for single consent for all their products. This, of course, may reduce the power of the companies, but for the user it means even more clicks with his «mouse». Others say that the GDPR on Data Protection requires citizens to make an informed decision. Therefore, website operators should allow users to first read what they intend to do with the data before consent is enabled.
Various ideas are being discussed in Brussels, where a new data protection regulation has been planned for years, but nothing is moving forward.The only real hope of salvation is Article 26 of the Telecommunications Data Protection Act. It was passed in the summer and allows for the introduction of independent pages that manage cookie settings. Instead of being harassed everywhere, a citizen could put everything on a website and then surf the web without being bothered.
The problem is difficult to solve, however, as even MEPs who sit on the Justice Committee, who are very strict on data protection issues, admit that they often click «I agree» on cookies. Without even thinking about it. It's just that even they, too, are running out of steam...
