The European Commission aims to reform the EU’s cookie consent rules that have cluttered websites with intrusive banners asking for permission to track user data[1]. The initiative seeks to streamline data protection while maintaining privacy safeguards through centralized consent mechanisms[1:1].
Cookie consent banners emerged from the ePrivacy Directive (Cookie Law) and GDPR requirements, which mandate websites obtain explicit user permission before collecting non-essential data through cookies[2]. Current rules have led to widespread implementation of pop-up notices that interrupt user experience and often employ confusing interfaces.
The proposed changes reflect growing recognition that the existing approach has “messed up the internet” while failing to provide meaningful privacy protection[1:2]. Rather than requiring individual consent on every website, the Commission is exploring solutions like centralized consent management to reduce banner fatigue while preserving user privacy rights.
That doesn’t work, because rejecting all cookies means it’s impossible for the page to remember whether you skipped the banner… so the result is that the banner will always show.
The real solution would be to have this be a browser / HTML standard. Similar to other permissions managed by the browser (like permission to get camera/mic, permission to send notifications, etc)… then each browser can have a way to respond to these requests for permission that we can more fully control/customize… with a UI owned by the browser that is consistent across websites and with settings that can be remembered browser-side (so the request can be automatically denied if that’s what you want).