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Comment by ZeroConcerns | Hacker News Reader

Well, if Apple were really clever, they'd have introduced an 'EU DMA CAPTCHA' by now, requiring anyone EU-adjacent-resident to mark all the evil EU bureaucrats in a picture of room before allowing them to resume their doomscrolling.

I mean, it absolutely worked for effectively sinking the GDPR, where pretty much everyone now equates that law with obnoxious 'cookie banners', to the point that these regulations are being relaxed, despite never requiring these banners in any way, shape or form in the first place.

But, yeah, despite that, I'd say they'll get away with this as well...

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> I mean, it absolutely worked for effectively sinking the DMCA, where pretty much everyone now equites that law with obnoxious 'cookie banners', to the point that these regulations are being relaxed.

I don't think DMCA has anything to do with that though I did wish everyone hated it. You probably meant GDPR.

Yes, indeed, thank you! Fixed now, but, well... abbreviation fatigue takes its toll...

Even with the fix that's still not really accurate - though it's a widespread misconception.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPrivacy_Directive

No, it's now entirely accurate. Nothing in the GDPR requires 'cookie banners', and your Wikipedia link doesn't 'dispell' that 'misconception', but nice try...

My point is that it was never the GDPR that required any sort of "cookie banner" in the first place.

The cookie banner requirement is itself a widespread misconception because the actual rule is neither specific to cookies (it would also cover other locally stored data) nor universal (for example it doesn't require specific consent for locally storing necessary data like session/login mechanics or the contents of a shopping basket).

The requirements for consent that do exist originate in the ePrivacy Directive. That directive was supposed to be superseded by a later ePrivacy Regulation that would have been lex specialis to the GDPR - possibly the only actual link between any of the EU law around cookies and the GDPR - but in the end that regulation was never passed and it was formally abandoned earlier this year.

So for now rules about user consent for local data storage in the EU - and largely still in the UK - do exist but they derive from the ePrivacy Directive and they are widely misunderstood. And while there has been a lot of talk about changes to EU law that might improve the situation with the banners so far talk is all it has been.

ePrivacy Directive doesn't require those obnoxious banners either

It doesn't require consent for cookies or similar data that are strictly necessary to do what the user has asked for - a token for logging in or the contents of a shopping cart are the two canonical examples.

It certainly does require informed consent in other situations though and the dreaded cookie banners were the industry's attempt to interpret that legal requirement.

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