Following several hundred noyb complaints against companies that use questionable consent banners, the European Data Protection Board established a "cookie banner taskforce" in September 2021. In January 2023, the taskforce then published a report offering its opinion and recommendations regarding the different kind of violations found in consent banners. With its new Consent Banner Report, noyb compared the taskforce's findings with the positions taken by national DPAs in guidance documents and actual decisions. This can be a helpful resources for companies implementing consent banners.
Comparison of EDPB recommendations with national DPA positions. In the course of recent years, data protection authorities (DPAs) across Europe have received countless complaints concerning cookie banners. Finally, in September 2021, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) responded by setting up a task force “to coordinate the response to complaints”. In January 2023, this taskforce published a report titled “Report of the work Undertaken by the Cookie Banner Taskforce”, offering their opinon and recommendations regarding the violations found in consent banners across the web. But how does this relate to the positions of national DPAs? After all, the report emphasises that the task force's findings are only minimum thresholds for consent banners, and that national DPAs are able to adopt higher standards.
New resource: noyb's Consent Banner Report. This is where noyb's new report on consent banners comes in: We have compared the EDPB taskforce’s findings for each consent banner violation with the positions taken by national DPAs in guidance documents and actual decisions. We believe that this report will be a valuable resource for companies setting up consent banners. In addition, we hope that the report will spark further discussion about the guidelines adopted on deceptive practices, and how they can be developed in the future to ensure that useres have a fair and free choice in consent banners.
What you can expect. The report addresses different practices in turn, outlining some of the relevant issues, the position of the EDPB taskforce, and the guidelines published by national DPAs. Where available, information on actual DPA decisions will be added.
Below is an overview of the different positions taken by national DPAs compared to the recommendations of the EDPB taskforce:
