Cookie consent pop-ups have become a ubiquitous (read: obnoxious) presence on the internet, and for many users, they are nothing more than a nuisance. They interrupt the browsing experience, and are often presented in an obtrusive and disruptive manner, taking up a large portion of the screen. This can be especially frustrating for users who are trying to access the information quickly, whether it be reading news, checking out prices or getting directions. Instead of providing a seamless browsing experience, these pop-ups force users to take an extra step before they can access the content they are looking for.
Moreover, the majority of users simply click “Allow all” without reading the notice, and I don’t blame them. 99.999999% of users just don’t have the time or patience to read through a long and complex explanation about cookies (at least, not HTTP cookies), so they just click whatever button they think will make the message go away.
When websites first started using these pop-ups, they were at least somewhat reasonable in size. But now, some of them take up more than half the entire page. I mean, what the actual hell? Are they trying to make up for a lack of content with a giant pop-up?
I get it, GDPR and all that legal mumbo jumbo, but that doesn’t mean you have to ruin the user experience for every single one of your visitors just because you’re scared of getting in trouble for collecting user data. To be honest, I’d love to say I’ll never visit a website again if they have an obnoxiously large cookie consent pop-up, but let’s be real, that’s just not always a viable option. So all we can really do is just complain about it, and maybe add a filter to block these pop-ups.
And to clarify, I’m not saying that GDPR is a bad thing. In fact, I’m immeasurably thankful to GDPR for forcing websites to implement a way for users to delete their data.
So yeah, fuck obnoxiously large cookie consent notices.