The premise is that the intent of the law was good, so everyone should naturally change their behavior to obey the spirit of the law.

That isn't how people work. The law was poorly written and even more poorly enforced. Attempts at "compliance" made the web browsing experience worse.

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norman784 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The implementors of the banners did it in the most annoying way, so most users will just accept all instead of rejecting all (because the button to reject all was hidden or not there at all), check steam store for example their banner is non intrusive and you can clearly reject or accept all in one click.

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Qwertious 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The law wasn't poorly written, most websites just don't follow the law. Yes, they're doing illegal things, but it turns out enforcement is weak so the lawbreaking is so ubiquitous that people think it's the fault of the law itself.

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filoleg 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> [...] most websites just don't follow the law. Yes, they're doing illegal things, but it turns out enforcement is weak so the lawbreaking is so ubiquitous [...]

I just checked the major institutional EU websites listed here[0], and every single one (e.g., [1][2][3]) had a different annoying massive cookie banner. In fact, I was impressed I couldn't find a single EU government website without a massive cookie banner.

I don't know if it is due to the law enforcement being so weak (or if the law itself is at fault or whatever else). But it seems like something is not right (either with your argument or EU), given the EU government itself engages in this "lawbreaking" (as defined by you) on every single one of their own major institutional websites.

The potential reason you brought up of "law enforcement is just weak" just seems like the biggest EU regulatory environment roast possible (which is why I don't believe it to be the real reason), given that not only they fail to enforce it against third parties (which would be at least somewhat understandable), but they cannot even enforce it on any of their own first party websites (aka they don't even try following their own rules themselves).

0. https://guides.libraries.psu.edu/european-union/official-ser...

1. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/portal/en

2. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/

3. https://european-union.europa.eu/index_en

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JumpCrisscross 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> law wasn't poorly written, most websites just don't follow the law

I honestly haven't found the banners on EU websites any less annoying or cumbersome than those on shady operators' sites.

	▲	whstl 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Most websites in the EU also aren't following the law.

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nemomarx 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

people intentionally made the banners annoying or tried to make the reject button smaller / more awkward so that they could keep tracking.

Definitely a failure of enforcement, but let's not pretend that was good faith compliance from operators either

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masfuerte 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'd settle for companies obeying the letter of the law. They don't do that either.

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dspillett 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Attempts at "compliance" made the web browsing experience worse.

Malicious compliance made the web browsing experience worse. That and deliberately not complying by as much as sites thought they could get away with, which is increasing as it becomes more obvious enforcement just isn't there.