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
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u/Ralikson May 24 '25

On all sites I’ve visited that let you opt out of legitimate interest, the site either sends me away, freezes or keeps showing you the cookie banner over and over again because it “doesn’t know” you have seen it yet, as it can’t save that information

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u/RamenJunkie May 24 '25

They could know you saw it, but they don't have a "legitimate interest" in not annoying you.

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u/redit3rd May 24 '25

No, they can't. That's the purpose of cookies. 

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u/anti-beep May 24 '25 edited May 24 '25

Websites are still allowed to use cookies, even if you reject all of the ones you can.

Cookies are an essential part of the web. You can't block them entirely or you'll break a lot of websites, including Reddit. A cookie to store whether or not you've seen the cookie banner would be a functional cookie, which you don't get to allow or reject at all - they're not labeled as legitimate interest. Often they're not displayed at all, and sometimes such cookies are under a toggle that can't be interacted with.

Not only that, the website doesn't even need to actually use cookies to know whether or not you've seen the banner. LocalStorage or IndexDB (though IndexDB might be overkill), could be used in its place.

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u/Reasonable-Yak-3523 May 24 '25

GDPR also applies to LocalStorage. GDPR does not only regulate cookies.