Collecting user usage data is the basic step to actually understanding how your users use your website so you can improve it. It's so standard that even the official EU government website collects this kind of data and has a cookie prompt.

And you know what irks me the most? These politicians weren't smart enough to write a law that does this to all digital places. Yes, they only wrote this law for websites while apps are basically free to collect the same data on users freely without any prompting.

> And you know what irks me the most? These politicians weren't smart enough to write a law that does this to all digital places. Yes, they only wrote this law for websites while apps are basically free to collect the same data on users freely without any prompting.

That’s wrong, you can check the EDPB guidelines[0], consent is required for mobile apps, desktop programs, SDKs, etc

The collection isn’t the issue. As long as it is done with consent. Which is why the EU website is showing you the banner. You also do not need to prompt if you do not share with 3rd parties and for what is considered essential for your services to function

0: https://www.edpb.europa.eu/our-work-tools/our-documents/guid...

> Collecting user usage data is the basic step to actually understanding how your users use your website so you can improve it.

Sure. To a point!

But then you go to, say, the Daily Mail, and its cookie banner tells you they'd like to share with their 1,300 ad/tracking partners, and that you can turn them off only individually.