Those Annoying Cookie Banners May Go Away Soon

Most websites display an annoying banner to web users in Europe asking for consent to cookies. They get to see this banner on almost every single website that they visit. It may be charming once or twice but it quickly gets annoying. Fortunately, the European Commission has decided that there has to be a better way to keep web users in the loop about the use of cookies. It has now released plans to cut down on these banners.

If you’re unaware, the small files that are downloaded on a user’s device to enable tracking for purposes like advertising are called cookies. EU rules have required websites to display banners with information about cookies being downloaded on their websites since 2012.

These cookie banners ask visitors to give consent to cookies on every website they visit. Under the new plan, websites won’t need to display such banners because users will be able to set general preferences.

The European Commission’s plans involve removing banners for non-intrusive cookies, it says that this new approach is going to tackle an “overload” of such requests. However, experts are of the view that these plans could end up harming advert-funded media and even major platforms like Google and Facebook.

European Commission vice-president Andrus Ansip said that the commission is now looking to simplify these rules so that “internet users do not have to click on a banner every time they visit a website,” while they have more control over their settings. The new plans suggest that websites read users’ general preferences in the browsers and direct cookie behavior accordingly.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Web
Tags: cookies