Europe's Cookie Law Messed Up the Internet. Brussels Wants To Fix It.

In a bid to slash red tape, the European Commission wants to eliminate one of its peskiest laws: a 2009 tech rule that plastered the online world with pop-ups requesting consent to cookies. From a report: It's the kind of simplification ordinary Europeans can get behind. European rulemakers in 2009 revised a law called the e-Privacy Directive to require websites to get consent from users before loading cookies on their devices, unless the cookies are 'strictly necessary' to provide a service. Fast forward to 2025 and the internet is full of consent banners that users have long learned to click away without thinking twice.

'Too much consent basically kills consent. People are used to giving consent for everything, so they might stop reading things in as much detail, and if consent is the default for everything, it's no longer perceived in the same way by users,' said Peter Craddock, data lawyer with Keller and Heckman. Cookie technology is now a focal point of the EU executive's plans to simplify technology regulation. Officials want to present an 'omnibus' text in December, scrapping burdensome requirements on digital companies. On Monday, it held a meeting with the tech industry to discuss the handling of cookies and consent banners.

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