from Hacker News

Ask HN: Why don't they remove the cookies (and hence the banners)

by jorisboris on 12/9/24, 11:39 AM with 12 comments

I get it if you're an ads-driven website

But why do agencies, municipalities, (government) railways or other non-ads driven websites need to have cookies, and hence the frustrating banners?

My hypothesis is they want to be "better safe than sorry" but maybe there are real marketing purposes behind it?

some examples: https://www.mckinsey.com https://www.london.gov.uk https://www.ns.nl (Dutch railways) https://www.britishmuseum.org

  • by CharlieDigital on 12/9/24, 12:06 PM

    Likely metrics and tracking of traffic flow (origin, dest, etc.)

  • by aristofun on 12/9/24, 2:38 PM

    You are asking the question from the wrong side.

    The right side is - why those bureaucrats are so stupid, short sighted and people hating that we have the frustrating banners even on harmless websites.

  • by leros on 12/9/24, 4:48 PM

    I don't use a single cookie in my landing pages or product, but I still have the cookie banner because so many of the marketing tools track through cookies.

  • by hbh187 on 12/11/24, 3:56 AM

    Removing cookies would reset consent and preferences, violating regulations and frustrating users with repeated banners

  • by solardev on 12/9/24, 1:48 PM

    Analytics, marketing, etc.

  • by yen223 on 12/9/24, 12:53 PM

    User-preference cookies (e.g. light mode vs dark mode) are not "strictly necessary", and therefore probably still require consent under GDPR