German Administrative court: Cookie banner must contain “Reject all” button – The “Accept all” button is often the standard for cookie banners. An administrative court has ruled that the opposite offer is also necessary.

https://www.heise.de/en/news/Administrative-court-Cookie-banner-must-contain-Reject-all-button-10390520.html

by ByGollie

15 comments

  1. Ironically, this news website is in violation of the ruling themselves

    > #Administrative court: Cookie banner must contain “Reject all” button
    >
    > #The “Accept all” button is often the standard for cookie banners. An administrative court has ruled that the opposite offer is also necessary.
    >
    > *Stefan Krempl*
    >
    > Lower Saxony’s data protection officer Denis Lehmkemper can report a legal victory in his long-standing battle against manipulatively designed cookie banners . The Hanover Administrative Court has confirmed his legal opinion in a judgment of March 19 that has only just been made public: Accordingly, website operators must offer a clearly visible “reject all” button on the first level of the corresponding banner for cookie consent requests if there is also the frequently found “accept all” option. Accordingly, cookie banners must not be specifically designed to encourage users to click on consent and must not prevent them from rejecting the controversial browser files.
    >
    > Otherwise, the cleverly obtained consent would be ineffective, explains the Lower Saxony supervisory authority with reference to the reasons for the ruling. This would constitute a violation of the Telecommunications Digital Services Data Protection Act (TDDDG) and the General Data Protection Regulation ( GDPR ).
    >
    > In the case, the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung (NOZ) had taken legal action against an order issued by Lehmkemper (case reference: 10 A 5385/22). The inspector demanded a redesign of the Lower Saxony media company’s cookie banner, as it did not obtain effective, in particular informed and voluntary consent before setting the browser files and subsequently processing personal information. NOZ, on the other hand, took the view that consent was effectively obtained. It did not process personal data. Moreover, the data protection authority was not responsible for monitoring compliance with the legal provisions on setting cookies.
    >
    > **Many legal violations with the NOZ banner**
    >
    > The 10th Chamber of the Administrative Court has now ruled that rejecting cookies on the controversial banner was much more complicated than accepting them. Users were constantly forced to give their consent by new requests. The headline “optimal user experience” and the caption “accept and close” were misleading, the judges stated. The term “consent” was completely missing.
    >
    > The number of partners and third-party services involved was also not clear, the chamber criticized. References to the right to withdraw consent and data processing in third countries were only visible after scrolling. Overall, users had not given informed, voluntary and unambiguous consent within the meaning of the GDPR.
    >
    > **Data protection officer hopes for a signal effect**
    >
    > Lehmkemper believes the ruling strengthens users’ rights. “The vast majority of people are probably annoyed by cookie banners,” says the data protection expert. However, these fulfill an important function for maintaining privacy on the internet. This is precisely why the supervisory authorities are “campaigning for a real choice in the design of banners”. He hopes that “the ruling sends a signal to as many providers as possible and thus helps to implement consent solutions that comply with data protection regulations”.
    >
    > The Conference of Independent Federal and State Data Protection Supervisory Authorities (DSK) stated in a guidance document at the end of 2021 : If the user is only offered an “Accept all” button and additional options such as “Settings” or “Further information” for cookie banners, this is not legally compliant. This is because the “communication effect” of the two approaches is not equivalent. Furthermore, the use of a consent management platform (CMP) alone does not automatically obtain consent within the meaning of the law. The Bavarian State Office for Data Protection Supervision recently carried out a random, automated review of website operators and found many solutions that were not legally compliant.
    >
    > ( wpl )

  2. These bureaucrats ruined the web experience in Europe with this non-sense.

    I don’t care about cookies!

    Luckily there are browsers out there such as Brave or other plugins that automatically remove those extremely annoying popups.

    NOTE: These idiotic cookies’ pop-ups gives nothing but a false sense of “security/control” – They are meaningless. The browser finger prints are used to identify and track you anyway!

  4. Two years ago I suggested that to the dev team of a newspaper I worked for, to implement the “No thanks to all” button on the first pop-up. They gladly implemented it within days. Apparently they thought it was a good idea considering their content and target audience. So it’s perfectly doable. But of course it needs a law to make it the norm.

  6. Let’s fucking go.

    This is how it should’ve been from day one. If you can accept all with a single click, you should be able to refuse all with a single click, side by fucking side.

  7. And that should include the ones they moved to “legitimate interest” when they still wanted to sell your data but you said no to the old cookie decline.
    I looked through them once and a tower defence game wanted to sell my data to a ‘legitimate interest’ Genius Sports UK Limited. Who apparently do sports analysis and stuff for gambling. Doesn’t sound legitimate to me.

  8. Here’s a better idea: assume “I reject” every time and just don’t show that stupid fucking banner. If anyone decides to want to be tracked, they can still scroll down to the privacy page and opt in.

  9. I always wondered why cookie settings aren’t saved as a global browser function instead of a site-by-site-based option. 

  11. Just force web browsers to do that automaticly , add a option on web browsers were we can change for using just essential cookis on the web browser, don’t make us click on more buttons tham what is need. respect people time.

  12. While you’re at it. Make the reject button red and accept all green…not the other way around 😤

  13. I remember when those buttons started. People were like “this is useless, this is a shallow measure”. I laughed and answered them “that’s a brilliant measure: a foot in the door ; now we just have to wait for the judges to reach the logical conclusion of the “accept all” option”. And now here we are ! 👍

Comments are closed.