I saw Tom Scott’s video about how cookies are how your computer talks to the server and all that and fingerprinting and stuff, but you’re supposed to be able to say no to cookies, right? Most websites don’t have an option to say no. I’ve noticed that I usually get a banner that just says “accept all cookies” at the bottom of the website, but you can use the website anyways. Knowing the world we live in, I assume the cookies are active even if you never click the accept button? I’m guessing there’s some loophole thing that’s like “by using our site you agree to cookies even if you don’t push accept” or something.
In: Technology
Depends on how the site implemented it. GDPR (Europe) law prohibits the site from setting any non essential cookies (essential meaning cookies that have to be set for the site to work properly, i.e. language preference, or setting a cookie if you log in, so you stay logged in) without the user consent. The site shouldn’t set them before you click accept, so not clicking anything should be the same as clicking “decline”. But as you might guess not every site obeys this. If you are in the US, there’s a similar law in California state (CCPA), but this one works slightly different – you have to opt out manually. So in this case they can set the cookies without your consent, but have to remove them and stop setting them once you require to be opted out.
source: I am a web developer for a data company that has to comply by both of these laws.
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