Yesterday was one of those days where I screamed into a pillow. Actually, I didn’t scream into a pillow – I stared angrily at my computer screen, suppressing the urge to throw my laptop through the nearest window. All because I wanted to click on an article about growing tomatoes and was met with…this.
Google search > click promising article link > big gray popup shades my screen and cheerfully announces: “We value your privacy!”
No problem!
Cool! First box = reject all cookies!
Just…where’s the button that lets me do that? ? Ahahaha nope!
Instead I’m presented with a brightly-colored “ACCEPT ALL” button. And buried underneath all that clickable deceit is a tiny gray link that says “Manage Preferences.”
Oh, *&%@#. Fine.
CLICK
So you know how there are SIX DEGREES OF KEVIN BACON? Well, there are apparently seven layers of hell that website cookies must worm their way through before popping up on your screen, because when I clicked “Manage Preferences” I was taken to a screen with thirteen different COOKIE CATEGORIES, each with it’s own customizable tab. And just who do these companies think they’re talking to?
Every single tab was PACKED with four to twenty businesses who ALL WANTED TO TRACK ME AS I RESEARCHED HOW TO GROW TOMATOES FOR “LEGITIMATE BUSINESS PURPOSES.” I got stuck in cookie-button-click purgatory for what felt like an eternity. Decline > click tab > untick box > click confirm >repeat thirteen times. Forty-five minutes later, I still hadn’t clicked my way out.
Twenty websites I hadn’t realized were tracking me thanked me for browsing their content and delightedfully wished me a good day – all while my finger somehow developed carpal tunnel syndrome and I wanted to die. “Seriously, this isn’t even legal,” I yelled at my laptop (don’t worry, my neighbors). I mean, it technically may be legal, but that’s not what laws are supposed to say.
Finally, FINALLY I clicked my way through every last tab and decline button and thought…I’m freeeeeeeeeeeee………
…but then another popup appeared. “You’ve made your privacy choices. Before you continue, would you like to manage your preferences for OUR ADVERTISING PARTNERS?”
OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE.
I can’t even express how much rage I felt reading those words. Not only did I have to go through seven MORE nauseating categories of cookies (seriously, companies who want to sell me stuff, seven is too many categories. YOU HAVE ENOUGH COOKIES AS IT IS) but ALSO the pathetic little “CONTINUE WITH MY CHOICES” button at the bottom was gray text on a slightly-less-gray background.
Like, who do you think you’re kidding. It took me over fifteen minutes of clicking “decline” about 200 times across dozens of privacy consent windows to finally reach the article I clicked on over half an hour ago. Did I mention this was over an article about tomatoes?
? Privacy websites are not accidentally hostile to users. They are Hostile.
To users. That’s not an accident. Someone decided it would be beneficial to bury “reject all cookies” behind seven levels of admin windows and seventeen confirmation boxes.
Terms like these are know as “dark patterns” by those who study internet privacy – though I prefer to think of it as “being a massive wanker.”
It’s so painfully obvious what’s going on here. They make accepting cookies so annoyingly easy that you just want to stop fighting them and accept all cookies goddammit just LET ME READ THE ARTICLE ALREADY. They know people will eventually give up in cookie fatigue and just accept everything – all while remaining technically GDPR compliant.
*
*I work with an SEO consultant named Sarah and she confirmed my theory when I discussed it with her over drinks last week. “Yeahhhhh,” she said while vigorously nodding her head. “Everyone does this.
Companies specifically ask us to make it MORE annoying to reject than accept so their conversions go up.” When I asked her how changing one button could be GDPR compliant she laughed, “Oh honey, GDPR doesn’t care HOW you give users a choice, just that you offer a choice. Someone could purposely make their cookie popups ten feet tall with jet engines on them and they’d be within their rights.”
“But shouldn’t that…viol…,” I began. “Against the spirit of GDPR?
Welcome to my world,” she interrupted with a sip of her whiskey. “They actually do studies on this kind of stuff. Did you know that for every single click you add to the ‘reject’ process you gain an additional 15-20% customer drop off?
Everyone knows.”
The worst part is that nobody even tries to hide it anymore. I was browsing the BBC News website last month when I was greeted with an actual popup that read:
“It looks like you’ve chosen to reject some cookies. Are you sure you want to reject these cookies?
Accepting cookies allows us to provide a better experience for our users.”
Um………. Just accept it, guys. You wear people down so that they’ll eventually accept everything.
But don’t pretend like it’s the user’s decision when your interface is literally begging them not to reject cookies. The passive-aggressive jabs don’t stop there either. “Allow cookies to help us give you a better experience!” Fine.
Order up, Gordon Ramsay. “Personalize your experience” …great, now my ads will randomly know what I’m thinking about (but not like THAT). “…improve our site!” Please do improve your damn site – maybe by removing 500Weight SEO Consultant from it’s monthly rotation.
My personal favorite cookie phrasing of all time though? “…support our free content!” WTF do you think I am, Simon? Paying you??
Clearly I’m intrinsically stealing all your articles RIGHT NOW because I don’t want someone ELSE stealing them by clicking “accept cookies.”
Last Tuesday, I encountered a new “leader” in cookie hell. A shopping website – we’ll call them “Smazon” – welcomed me to their site with a cookie consent banner. Upon declining this cookie consent banner, Smazon then presented me with… another cookie consent banner.
This second cookie consent banner could NOT FUCKING LEAVE ME ALONE when I declined it. No sirree. It spawned another popup.
Which I also declined. And yet another popup. Which I ALSO declined.
By cookie consent banner number seven, I got so angry that they basically dared me to reject their cookies. “Yes cookie elves. I’m ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that I want to browse Smazon without allowing you to track my every move.” You have NO idea how much information I WANT to be tracking your site.
You just pressurize me so damn hard,. This practice of asking users the same question over and over to try and get them to say “yes” is actually called “nagging.” Websites do it to you. Kidsolvers do it to their parents.
And it’s only illegal when a two year old does it. Websites know this shit works. They KNOW we will accept all cookies just to avoid clicking through screens upon screens of checkboxes and moving windows like some kind of horrifying 1984-style hellscape.
Hell, I did some digging on this EXACTLY issue last month. I timed how long it took me to both accept and reject cookies on twenty of the most popular news and retail websites. Here’s what I found:
Seconds to Accept vs Seconds to Reject Cookies
News and retail websites literally program these sites knowing that over 80% of their viewers WILL accept cookies just to avoid spending two minutes trying to figure out how to reject them.
TWO MINUTES! On one news site – yes, seriously another story and it is 100% TRUE – it took me FOUR FULL INTERFACES and 92 ANNIHILATINGLY REPEATING OPTIONS to outright reject cookies from being placed. Not just accept, but FULLY REJECT.
92 goddamn choices to click “no” to. Privacy laws like GDPR were put in place to give users control. To let us know our data was being harvested.
TO MAKE SURE WE UNDERSTOOD WHY WE WERE BEING TRACKED WHEN WE VISITED A WEBSITE. All that effort for websites to say “Sure you can leave if you want” while simultaneously making it utterly HELLISH for you to actually leave. My brother-in-law, Pete, used to work for an online advertising company (we try not to hold it against him when he comes to Christmas dinner) and even HE told me they’ve gone too far.
“Look,” he said last month over some roast potatoes. “It’s blatant harassment at this point. Every ad company knows full well what they’re doing.
But the stats don’t lie. Sure people click ‘reject all cookies’ at first. But the harder you make it for them, the more will eventually change their mind.”
“But that sounds…really unethical.”
He shrugged.
“That’s why they don’t SPECIFY how you give people a choice in the laws. Sure we HAVE to let people know about cookies and have to give them a choice. We don’t HAVE to make that choice convenient.”
See there’s the thing.
Bad cookie consent windows aren’t breaking the rules, they’re working THE SYSTEM. I put together a quick survey of my own over the past few weeks. Asking folks how they typically deal with cookie consent popups when browsing the web.
Three percent closed the tab. Fifty percent clicked accept all cookies. And a full 47% use browser extensions like I do!
Yes, people are clicking accept cookies on PURPOSE because it’s so fucking aggravating to deal with! My advice to those thinking of constantly accepting cookies: DON’T. Here are some things I do that might help.
If I regularly visit a site that won’t let me live without clicking ten F*CKING BUTTONS to reject all cookies, I install a browser extension that automatically declines them for me. There are tons of options for Chrome/Firefox/etc – here are a few I found by googling “browser extensions that block cookies.”
I uninstall browsers that make dealing with cookies complicated. Whenever I fire up Internet Explorer and see THAT MONSTROSITY of a cookie popup, I instantly uninstall it from my machine.
Quality install time: 15 seconds. Honestly, if it’s a website I don’t regularly visit? I’ve found myself just closing the tab entirely.
I know, I know. Sometimes I want to read that article about inflation in Europe but CUZ COOKIES AMAZON. But you know what’s worse than not reading an article?
Giving websites permission to track your browsing habits just because you didn’t feel like clicking twenty-three times to tell them to F*** OFF. So far, this “close the tab” mindset has worked wonders for me. Since I’ve started carrying around a thin black rock of hatred in my pocket I haven’t once accepted cookies on a website I don’t use religiously.
Will I occasionally want information on something and have to deal with cookie consent popups? Of course I will! Does that give websites license to harass me with their terribly written, creatively plagiarized content until I just give up and accept cookies just to read about how interest rates are affecting the global economy?
FUCK NO IT DOES NOT. Cookie Consent popups might not be illegal – but they’re STILL bullying. And bullying people into accepting cookies is neither constructive nor productive.
What do you do when you get a cookie popup that tests your sanity? Let me know in the comments! Want to make sure you never miss a post?
Subscribe to my blog below and receive every brand-spanking new post via email. Yeah…..THIS happened to me a few weeks ago. Was reading an article about window boxes and spent literally fifteen minutes trying to reject cookies from every Tom, Dick AND Harry before I could read the article.
Who knew gardens could be so privacy-invasive?
! Privacy settings – like the cookie popups below – can send you on such a convoluted journey you actually think you’ve accepted cookies when you didn’t.
Moral of the story: read ALL THE CHECKBOXES. But seriously. Read.
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