Five organizations caught using false cookie consent banners on their websites

Five organizations have been found to be placing false reports about cookies on their websites. The notifications have now been altered, the Dutch data protection authority (AP) has said. The organization would not release any names regarding the websites in question.

According to the regulator, it was difficult to reject the cookies as the button to do so was hidden. Also, some notifications already had a checkbox that people gave permission for cookies to be placed, and they had to change that to refuse the cookies. That should be the other way around. Some sites even placed cookies before visitors had given permission.

The AP has said that they plan to check on cookie consent banners more often in the coming years. “We do this with constant automatic scanning of cookie consent banners of 10,000 websites to check if they are clear enough,” said the privacy regulator. Any companies caught violating the rules could be issued a warning or a fine.

The regulator also thinks there issues with the controls of cookies. The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) checks all cookies, the AP looks into what happens to the personal data that is collected using cookies. This assignment of duties is inconvenient and obstructive, the AP stated in a letter to the economic affairs minister Dirk Beljaarts.

According to the AP, it is now always clear when they are cleared to perform certain tasks and the ACM are not prioritizing the regulation of cookies. The AP is suggesting that they be responsible for all the controls of cookies.

Cookies are small pieces of software that a site places on the computer of the visitor. The site uses this to remember things like what a person put in their digital shopping basket, for example.

Tracking cookies also follow people when they visit other sites. In this way, they see things like people searching for information about a new telephone. This information can then be sold on to advertisers.

This can then lead to a person being offered an advertisement for a new phone on a completely different website. This is allowed, but only if people have given explicit permission for it and when they are given the opportunity to reject it.