Not really, according to Midas Nouwens and Michael Veale both contributing authors to the recently released study by researchers at MIT, UCL and Aarhus University – “Dark Patterns after the GDPR: Scraping Consent Pop-ups and Demonstrating their Influence,” and quoted in TechCrunch.
The research looked at 10000 sites in the UK and the bottom line is “ “….dark patterns and implied consent are ubiquitous” with around one in ten of the CMP’s “meet the minimal requirements that we set based on European law” — define as “if it has no optional boxes pre-ticked, if rejection is as easy as acceptance, and if consent is explicit.”” observes Natasha Lomas in her TechCrunch article.
This is a serious problem where platforms meant to guard the users rights to privacy allow the websites to deceive users by design and where they allow implicit consent inferring via non affirmative actions like scrolling a page or closing a pop up.
Read the article to just orient yourself how legislation alone cannot protect you unless equal measure for enforcement is ensured.
Till then, you are pretty much on your own. And you are still being tracked.
Where I learnt this #399
Dark Patterns after the GDPR: Scraping Consent Pop-ups and Demonstrating their Influence
https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.02479
Cookie consent tools are being used to undermine EU privacy rules, study suggests
