It's CREEPY to imagine the Internet is under a mandate to protect your privacy.
Don't be CREEPY.
The EU cookie fiasco is just that. All of a sudden, your every day experience was derailed extremely in a way that 'broke' HTML standards and sites at first in hundreds of ways. All of a sudden sites that never did track users were forced to start tracking them -- in order to set the flag to suppress the harassing cookie warning. Ironically, they will remember your cookie settings if you 'sign up'. Meanwhile nothing became more secure or private. It was just a way for the EU to virtue signal out loud and be annoying. It throws the user into sitespace to navigate the site's own cookie settings. It's theater.
Meanwhile, advanced fingerprinting is, well uhm, advanced. If the EU cared about cookie privacy a better course of action would have been to see whether browsers were locked down with best anti-fingerprinting possible and local cookie dialogues... and certify the ones that were. Educate users, harass them one time.
> All of a sudden sites that never did track users were forced to start tracking them -- in order to set the flag to suppress the harassing cookie warning.
How is this true? You don't need a cookie warning if you're not tracking or doing other nastiness. A cookie banner is not required for functions like user sessions or keeping track of a shopping art.
> All of a sudden sites that never did track users were forced to start tracking them -- in order to set the flag to suppress the harassing cookie warning.
If the site never tracked the user, they wouldn't need to show the cookie banner in the first place.
The 'fiasco' is for your benefit. If you don't like the banners, get a blocker or don't visit sites that track you.
It's a pissy thing to add, but do you also get upset with places that have "This area is under video surveillance for your [cough] security"?
The EU cookie fiasco is just that. All of a sudden, your every day experience was derailed extremely in a way that 'broke' HTML standards and sites at first in hundreds of ways. All of a sudden sites that never did track users were forced to start tracking them -- in order to set the flag to suppress the harassing cookie warning. Ironically, they will remember your cookie settings if you 'sign up'. Meanwhile nothing became more secure or private. It was just a way for the EU to virtue signal out loud and be annoying. It throws the user into sitespace to navigate the site's own cookie settings. It's theater.
Meanwhile, advanced fingerprinting is, well uhm, advanced. If the EU cared about cookie privacy a better course of action would have been to see whether browsers were locked down with best anti-fingerprinting possible and local cookie dialogues... and certify the ones that were. Educate users, harass them one time.