You can't even save user preferences (like language or other settings) without showing a cookie banner. Edit: I was mistaken. You can't save inferred preferences, but can save explicit user-saved options.

And for a serious website, front end analytics are kind of a necessity to understand how users interact with pages and improve the experience. Note that it certainly doesn't require tracking the behaviour of individual users, just understanding how controls are used in aggregate.

I know it seems like you could work around this with careful design and maybe focus groups and such, but I can tell you we regularly uncover surprising insights from (aggregate) trends in front-end events.

That's not true and is a very common misinformation people repeat online. You can save user preferences in cookies without any consent banner, if the cookie isn't used for tracking.

See here[0], page 6:

> As stated in Article 5(3) ePD: ‘This shall not prevent any technical storage or access for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network, or as strictly necessary in order for the provider of an information society service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user to provide the service.’

0: https://www.edpb.europa.eu/system/files/documents/2024-10/ed...

As long as you do not share that info with 3rd party, and the user requested it, you can store via cookies pretty much whatever you want without the need for a consent screen