How Cookie Banners Backfired

One prevalent consumer response is what two communications professors, Nora Draper and Joseph Turow, described in a 2019 paper as “digital resignation.” That is a state of mind in which users know full well that their data is being appropriated and monetized — and know as well that they are being manipulated online — but don’t feel that they can do anything about it. They are resigned to allowing this to take place because they view it as the unfortunate cost of being a netizen.

“Most people don’t even know what cookies are,” said Florian Schaub, a privacy expert at the University of Michigan and a co-author of several studies about cookies and cookie banners. “In our research, we have found that hitting the ‘accept’ button is not actually indicative of consent,” he added.

Of course, there’s not much doubt that people want to care about data privacy. In California, a ballot initiative strengthening the state’s privacy laws passed in 2020 with 56 percent of the vote, despite the usual opposition from the big tech companies. The new law includes the creation of the California Privacy Protection Agency to enforce the state’s data privacy rules. It will be able to issue subpoenas and have the power to issue regulations. It is hard to know yet — the new law won’t go into effect until next year — but it’s possible that greater enforcement could finally force tech companies to make it easy for consumers to make informed choices.

In the meantime, privacy activists like Mr. Schrems believe that the real answer is to create easier ways for consumers to make decisions — simple, infrequent ones — about how they are tracked. Mr. Schrems, for instance, is working on ways to eliminate cookie banners entirely by crafting software that would send automatic signals from your browser. It could work like browser settings that block pop-up ads rather than asking a user to make that decision for every website, removing the need for multiple clicks on intentionally complex banners. It would also make it much more difficult for companies to game consent.

For now, though, we’re still stuck with cookie banners. And still on our own to decipher the terms on each website and make a decision we’ve thought about — at least, when we’re not in a hurry.

What do you think? Do most internet users care about controlling their data? What tools do they need to do so effectively? Let us know: dealbook@nytimes.com.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/29/business/dealbook/how-cookie-banners-backfired.html