Cookie banners · Reviewed

Banners designed to push users into accepting tracking

Raised by 190 people over 15 years (2012–2026), in 12 of them.

What people report

2012-05
the "Accept" button will become one people press habitually to get rid of an annoying banner
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2021-03
All those dark patterns to hide the rejection, keep some things ticked etc. are a complete waste of time.
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2022-08
intentionally obnoxious consent flows that are hard/impossible to actually decline even though the law requires it to be as easy as accepting
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2024-09
Making the cookie banners as frustrating as possible increases the political pressure against the EU
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2026-10
They are deliberately designed to be as annoying as they can legally be (many actually moreso)
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Principle

Avoid deceptive design (dark patterns)

People report consent prompts that seem built to tire, scold or confuse them until they give in and accept tracking.

More issues about deceptive design

A fix

Make rejecting take the same number of clicks as accepting, with equal visual weight and neutral wording. Remove guilt messages and any extra steps that apply only to the reject path.

Grouping, principle and fix drafted with Claude and reviewed by Justusability. Counts are people whose comment Claude labelled a usability complaint about this issue; see Method for how, and its limits. Something wrong here?

All 215 source comments