Fewer banners, more freedom?

On 21 October the EU Council adopted its position on the digital simplification package. Inside it there is a line that touches all of us, every day: new cases where cookies will not need consent, with the stated aim of "reducing the number of cookie banners".

Three cases are given as examples: when the cookie is needed to provide the service, for audience measurement, and to keep the device secure. In the same text, member states hold firm on the definition of personal data, which the Commission wanted to narrow. Next comes the European Parliament's position, then negotiations.

The banner was already a ritual

I have said it for a while: the cookie banner is the symbol of consent that is not understanding. We click to make an obstacle go away, not to decide. So part of me applauds. Fewer choices, more freedom: it is one of the principles I work by.

But that principle has a condition. The choices you remove must be the ones nobody needed. Not the ones that annoyed whoever collects the data.

Who decides which questions to make disappear?

This is the point. Simplifying is not neutral. Every time a question leaves the interface, someone has decided for us that the answer was obvious. For a technical cookie, fine. For "audience measurement", it depends: on who measures, how much, and who they share it with.

Clarity is not simplicity. One banner less is simplicity. Knowing what happens without having to ask is clarity. The first takes an amendment. The second has to be designed.

That is why I will read the final text with one precise question: when the banners go, will the duty to explain go with them? Or will it stay, perhaps on a page nobody opens?

If the reform removes noise and keeps transparency, it is a step forward. If it removes both the question and the answer, we have only made the choice invisible.