"Kill the Cookie Banner!” Initiative: Rethinking Digital Consenting in Europe

The initiative, backed by consumer organisations, data protection NGOs and researchers, focuses on proposed changes to EU digital regulation. As part of the Digital Omnibus, the European Commission had considered an approach that would allow users to manage their privacy decisions on the user side, rather than repeatedly responding to consent banners on individual websites.

According to the organisations behind the initiative, this proposal has since been removed from current drafts. They argue that countries including Germany, France and Poland are blocking the approach following pressure from industry.

The problem: consent ≠ preference

The initiative highlights a striking gap between what users click and what they actually want.

According to the campaign website, up to 90% of users accept the collection of personal information through cookie banners—while far fewer say they actually want to be tracked online.

Repeated consent requests can contribute to what critics call “consent fatigue”: users click simply to make the banner disappear, rather than making a genuinely informed choice.

A different technical approach is possible

Advanced Digital Protection Control (ADPC), co-developed by WU Vienna, noyb and other institutions, provides a concrete example of how privacy and digital rights can be managed on the user side. Through technical specifications and protocols, ADPC enables privacy- and rights-related information, requests, decisions and records to be communicated in a structured and machine-readable way.

Instead of forcing people to manage privacy website by website, mechanisms such as ADPC point toward privacy and rights management on the user’s side.

By supporting the initiative, the Sustainable Computing Lab and IMC contribute to the wider discussion about how the technical design and regulation of digital systems can enable meaningful user control over personal data.

Learn more: https://killthecookiebanner.eu