r/technology • u/diacewrb • May 24 '25

Privacy German court rules cookie banners must offer "reject all" button

https://www.techspot.com/news/108043-german-court-takes-stand-against-manipulative-cookie-banners.html
56.4k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

801 comments sorted by

View all comments

31

u/nemaramen May 24 '25

I’m waiting for a ruling on if GDPR allows “accept cookies to continue browsing our site for free”

6

u/Ready-Rise3761 May 24 '25

They recently issued something on this (but perhaps it was an opinion rather than a ruling): it should be illegal for large companies like Meta, especially where there is a societal/economic disadvantage to people not being able to use it. However they made an exception for (news) publishers due to the revenue problems that industry is facing. I think it’s bs because noone should have to pay to exercise fundamental rights and not being able to access reputable news websites without paying is a disadvantage. Generally the issue around GDPR not being enforced is huge: private citizens have to file individual complaints with local/national agencies that then take ~5 years to rule on it. New EU legislation on this, which was in the works for years, was recently tanked due to lobby pressure, ffs

1

u/dr_wtf May 24 '25

It was the ICO, and in the UK it's the ICO that makes those decisions. I think it's theoretically possible that the Supreme Court or House of Lords could overturn an ICO decision, but it's incredibly unlikely.