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By now, it’s a routine occurrence – every time you visit a new website, you inevitably encounter a pop-up message asking you if you’d like to accept the website cookies. Usually, the message also asks if you’d like to peruse the website’s cookie policy. If you’re like most people, you simply click “yes” to the cookie request and move on with your website browsing experience without ever bothering to read any formal policies. Anything to make those annoying pop-ups go away! And that’s really one problem with privacy on the Internet today – as much as we say we are in favor of stronger privacy, most of us have absolutely no interest in doing anything that will slow down our browsing experience.
Pros and cons of cookies
On one hand, of course, the fact that a website is being so transparent about its use of cookies is supposed to be a good thing. In the wake of the strict new European privacy law known as GDPR, which went into effect in May 2018, websites have been bending over backwards, trying to remain in the good graces of regulators and various Internet authorities.
According to the GDPR, website users have a right to know which data websites are collecting about them, how it is being used, and why the information or data is being collected in the first place. So all those annoying cookie pop-up messages have emerged as the quickest and easiest way to remain in compliance with both the GDPR and the equally stringent European ePrivacy Directive, which is generally referred to as the “Cookie Law.”
On the other hand, however, all those pop-up messages are just plain annoying. Nobody really knows what they are agreeing to, and nobody is really going to read a cookie policy (especially not when all they really want to do is view a fun viral clip or share an Internet meme). These cookie pop-up windows are just as annoying as all the pop-up ads that used to be a fact of life on the Internet more than a decade ago. They don’t really accomplish much, and they just slow down the overall browsing experience.
A whole new approach to privacy
The bigger problem is that most website operators will simply take a path of least resistance when it comes to guaranteeing personal privacy. Do you really think companies want to re-architect an entire website experience? No, they’d much rather do the minimum possible to comply with any new rule or law. In this case, it means cookie pop-up messages.
Going forward, this approach to privacy is going to become especially problematic as new laws and regulations hit the books. For example, in the days leading up to 2020, you were probably getting all kinds of email messages from companies, telling you that they’ve changed their privacy policy. That’s not a coincidence, because the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) – California’s version of the GDPR – went into effect on January 1, 2020.
The Internet in 2020
So look for even more annoying pop-up messages and other quick fixes from companies as they race to stay in compliance with CCPA. As long as a few dominant tech companies – such as Google and Facebook – have a big say in the future of the Internet, it’s hard to expect any major departures from the status quo anytime soon.
