In the end we ended up with a requirement to ensure more and more prominent information. Do you think it's bad that more consumers are aware of the potential privacy impact of their actions?
Basically every website in the world except basic static sites use cookies. So the EU wants every website in the world to have a warning message about the dangers of cookies. That will show up every single time you visit every single website. Unless you accept the cookie that allows the site to see the fact that you saw a warning about cookies. So, websites have to use cookies to display a warning about cookies and if you don't accept the cookie, you get a warning about it on every single subsequent visit.
It screams laws written by politicians for special interest groups none of whom have the first clue about technology or how it works.
You could just have the web browser show an alert when a site wants to set a cookie and the user can click that alert or always allow it. Which is what we used to have in every web browser. Until users got sick of seeing the stupid warning because every single website uses cookies. And they got blind to the warning and paid no attention to it. Which made any other warning a browser shows more likely to just be clicked through.
So browsers removed the warning because we all realized it was stupid and pointless and ineffective and served no purpose any longer. But politicians with no idea how the technology works and no understanding of the fact that we already went through all this decide that everyone should see the dumb, stupid, ineffective warning on every single website and have it show up every single time for the people who understand how to manage their cookies and only show up once for the people who have no idea how to use their cookies. Just brilliant. It serves no purpose and everyone just clicks it away just like any other popup ad.
You're incorrectly thinking the EU cookie law applies to all cookies. It only applies to tracking data, including tracking cookies. Don't use Google Analytics -> No cookie law for you.
Actually, I do. There's a fallacy that displaying information before requesting consent necessarily leads to informed consent. Many users have insufficient background to understand what they're consenting to, particularly since such info-dumps tend to not mention what the consequences of various choices would be. With no context for their decision other than "Accept makes things work," all you're doing is training users to sign away their rights without knowing that they are
