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State of the Web, circa 2023:
“Would you like to use the browser by Company X, or the browser by the company that survives on half-a-billion dollars a year from Company X, or the browser by the company that gets paid an estimated $20 billion a year by Company X even though it can survive without it?”
We desperately need a web browser by an independent organisation funded by EU taxpayer money and maintained for the common good.
@aral No, not funded by the EU, it will just go on and on about cookies and nothing else. #eucookiemonster
@jtb Cookie notices are the fault of willful and malicious interpretation of GDPR by surveillance capitalists, not the EU. The fact that we have a greater degree of privacy in the EU is thanks to the EU (which is in no way perfect, not by a long shot).
@jtb GDPR only requires sites to show a cookie warning if they're spying on users 
@3wordchant @jtb I did not know this. I kind of abandoned my old website because I didn't know how to put in the cookie consent and was worried about using it. Clearly I didn't need to worry because I wasn't tracking anything
@3wordchant That may be, but it requires a cookie to stop the warning coming up over and over, so the result is we are forced to accept cookies. I was better off before the EU gave it any thought, when I used to clear all cookies on exit. Besides which, all sites are spying on us.
@jtb I think we're somehow misunderstanding each other. If a site isn't using cookies for user tracking, why do you think there needs to be a warning at all?
If you're talking about some other kind of pop-up, I've read EU guidance that a "remember me" preference saved in a cookie doesn't need a banner, just a "(uses cookies)" next to it – which seems like it would also work for "Don't ask me about subscribing to your newsletter again 
(uses cookies)"
@jtb I don't think the GDPR was intended to help people who were already using their own anti-cookie systems, more the majority who don't know about those options, or can't use them because they're in restricted computing environments like phone browsers.
@jtb I totally agree that cookie popups are anti-user horror-shows, I wish the EU's messaging had been better at explaining that the only sites who used those were the ones which made an active choice to keep using surveillance technology. In the meantime, do you know about Consent-O-Matic? Improved my internet experience 1,000% https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/consent-o-matic/
@3wordchant OK I am trying it out. I was using "I still don't care about cookies" on Chromium but it breaks some websites
Even the BBC issues a warning. But why? Here is their policy, they don't even advertise to people in the UK.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/usingthebbc/cookies/how-can-i-change-my-bbc-cookie-settings/
@jtb that seems to be because the BBC is doing the same creepy tracking as other websites displaying a banner
"What strictly necessary cookies does the BBC use?"
"uk-script.dotmetrics.net"
"Device key cookie. This cookie is an identifier of the device as seen by the system. Its purpose is to store information about the device to allow measurement of website traffic."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/usingthebbc/cookies/strictly-necessary-cookies/
@3wordchant They probably want to make sure people have paid their licence fee, and regard that as necessary. No crafty use of VPN.
Here's an odd one:
ckns_IVOTE_HISTORY
Stores voting history per user.
@jtb they could match website visitors with licence fee payers, and block VPNs, server-side without cookies – and probably more effectively
Even if you think that enforcing the licence fee model, or geoblocking content, are legitimate goals (which I don't), the reason there's a cookie banner is because of the BBC's choice of how to implement them.